Art as a Conduit

I believe in art as a conduit formed by two things: tools and life experience. Everyone’s conduit is different, based on those two factors. The more time and effort an artist puts into creating their conduit, the more unique it will be; with uniqueness comes the opportunity for authentic and personal work. In the process of building my unique conduit, I have discovered that the creation of art is a cycle.

Art begins when the artist takes in the world around them. Every day I grow as an artist, whether I spend it jumping out of a plane or binging my favorite show. Everything I do in my day-to-day life impacts me in ways that I often don't realize. For example: when I was younger my father would play a lot of singer/songwriter music in the car for us. Now, when I go to write on my guitar I am realizing that I tend to follow a similar sound that those artists from my youth had. On the other hand, the world can also have much more visible effects on art. This pandemic has caused me to feel at times sad and lonely, but those emotions have pushed me to a level of artistic growth that I didn’t know was possible for me. These feelings build up inside until the artist feels a strike of inspiration, like an overwhelming urge in the body that they must drop everything currently in their life and pick up an instrument or else they will implode. That inspiration coupled with a need to express is the second step of the cycle.

To release that artistic tension and capture my art as it leaves the body, I have learned to play without judgment. When I pick up my guitar I have to allow everything to happen, just breathe and feel my body flowing into my instrument. It is the same with my acting. When I am in a scene, in order to allow my impulses to emerge I can not be afraid of what might happen, I have to embrace anything and everything. It’s important to remember that my job as an artist is never to judge my art as I am producing it; rather to stay open and present because that will allow for truth to come through in my work. When I open up to my art, sometimes a piece will come from it, sometimes it doesn’t–the outcome is not what is important: it is being able to express what I need to. Yet, not everyone can just sit down at a desk when they feel inspired and write the next great play or opera; they need the proper tools of the artist.

These tools vary for each art, but they contribute directly to the level of art created. In music, it is training in music theory, and practicing scales. In acting, it is training the voice, memorization; training the body to curve at the neck and the spine in ways that benefit the portrayal. In literature, it is vocabulary, grammar, diction, and so on. All of these tools are specific to their art, yet they all feed the same purpose: to create a stronger conduit. The more time and effort I spend training these skills, the more mature and difficult work I can take on/create. These tools are similar to tablework for a character in a play. The more tablework I complete, the better off I will be when I live the moment of the play. While the tools strengthen my capacity to create, different techniques allow me to piece together my own conduit and switch the pieces out as needed. The more techniques I study the bigger my arsenal of methods to use in my art. The other aspect that shapes an artist’s conduit is life experience. I tend to think about life experience as the ridges and bumps in the shape of my conduit; the more I experience, the more unique the shape of my conduit becomes. Everything I experience manifests itself in my work, whether I want it to or not. I think that is what vulnerability is; allowing the art out without a filter as a form of expression. That’s the third step, and once that step is completed I as an artist hope that my work goes on to make the change that lit the fire in step one and complete the fourth step: change in the world. Yet I have only understood this kind of change to come from one type of art: Necessary.

Necessary art is the type of work that shines a light on the dark spots of the world. It is truly created by the people of today, for the people of today, in the streets of today. It is the most important and in my opinion the best type of art. Unfortunately for me, before this semester I was stuck at step three. I was stuck in a cycle of creating art for fun, or purely for there to be art. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that in itself, but an actor who participates for the sake of performing is not an artist, he is a performer. I want to be an artist. 

Art can be a means for change, and every artist can make the change he desires to see in the world, but he has to know what that change he craves is. I know what I care about, and I am realizing that I am best suited to change those things simply because I care about them. With the tools, and the experience I can make art that no one else can purely because I am a unique soul with unique traits. No one has my exact tools or life experience, and so there is room for me wherever I want to make a change with my art. I realize that my art is made through my eyes and mine only and that no matter how I try I will not be able to be anyone else, but that is ok. I was told this semester that “I am more interesting than trying to do or be anything else.” That is the idea I now live by.

I am at a crossroads in my journey as an artist. Some people are telling me to get a degree, some tell me to take time off, some tell me to forget about my art and find something new. Wherever I end up, I feel confident that I will continue to not only seize opportunities as they come but also create my own room for expression. I have an idea of what I want to explore, and what I don’t want to see in the next phase of my life, and that information itself is priceless to me. But right now, I am creating my conduit, and I hope UNCSA can help me build it.