Michelangelo believed it was his purpose in life to stare into a thick chunk of extremely hard to mold marble and free the angel inside. Was it a metaphor or true insight? What did he see, feel or hear that brought oxygen to Pieta, David, Moses and The Thinker?
Such talk creates divisions in belief. Critics scream, “Art doesn’t speak from rocks. There are no hidden figures or faces hidden within a fresh canvas or untouched sheet of paper and music is an act of releasing what the minds eye and body feel at the present moment. Art is nothing more than an act of sharing.”
Such talk cracks paint…
I remember standing next to an inner city forest in 1993 and physically hearing the wind order me to rebuild its roots. Say what? What I assumed was an extremely tall, tough and everlasting collection of sticks stuck feet first in Georgia clay was in fact reaching out to a passerby—unknowingly, without my help, inside a year several of the bark covered children would fall from tremendous sickness. A once vividly alive with bright greens and heavily scented shades of wild flowers hillside would be exposed to the southern sun leaving in its footprint decades of continued decay and erosion for a generation I’d never meet.
Thirty one years of radio, art hung in galleries all over America, commercials heard from Seattle to Brazil and nothing compares to the artwork of the forest that leaned over and spoke to me that morning. Seventeen years after shaking hands with a group of spirit keepers, the white pines, elms, oaks and melted reminders of a past that can’t be changed stand two lengths above the artists nearest touch.
How many times during an average year do you leave behind an unfinished sculpture? You’ve stopped bringing work to life and or halted the fight to liberate the angel inside. While sculpting your everyday, does the mountain in front of you bare the image of something that needs to be created?
The financial crisis of 08, the unheard of earthquakes in all four corners of the world, the endless amounts of oil flooding the Gulf of Mexico, Jay Leno stealing Conan’s job—stop for one moment and poke your finger into the numbness generated by every shape of negative vibration presented to us via computer faces, flat screens the size of movie scenes and word of mouth bent so far in every direction truth no longer exists.
Our current presentation is incomplete art.
Legendary limericks were masterminded by extremely bad times in Ireland. Nursery rhymes and songs still sung today by children around the world were introduced during plights and unexplained fatal sicknesses. It doesn’t matter how politically correct you want all and many to get, the roots of a once living tree still bare the rings of the voices and faces that remain incomplete.
95% of American’s feel incomplete at work. We show up, spend eight hours gossiping about Maggie the Magpie and her very close friendship with Hairy Hank with his untucked shirt, then race home to judge the dancers and performers on So You Think You Can Dance and America’s Got Talent because it makes us feel like we’re in control.
Daily workday pressure and expectations have forced what made this nation beautiful into a state of locked up but not loaded. I’ve yet to meet the coworker or neighbor who hasn’t evolved into a citizenship governed by self consciousness—which comes across as nothing more than a slate of bedrock with no desire to ever become rich, fertile soil.
Gone are the days when people believed what they did at work was truly an art form.
Stop thinking like that! Business presentations and other mediums used to inspire and or influence movement may look and smell like a pile of work to be done but through your efforts and wiliness to express is still art and should be treated as such.
You aren’t paid to be your boss’s best friend. Your job is to stare at that giant block in the traffic crowding your highway of success and turn it into statue worth displaying in someone’s front yard.
Not everyone can be the lead singer of a Rock n Roll band but that show ain’t nothin if the person hired to protect the microphone doesn’t show up…nobody wins if the singer’s voice can’t get out. What makes Chinese food addicting isn’t the rice…it’s a complete collection of everything shoved into a single thought including your mamma’s kitchen sink and the neighbors left sock. Mmmm good!
Michelangelo believed it was his purpose in life to stare into a thick chunk of extremely hard to mold marble and free the angel inside.
Know where Michelangelo is going? We currently stand millions of miles from his physical construction of turning rocks into stunning statues…there’s a bigger story to share. We assume he enjoyed carving into once living earth. We assume he found favorable times when giving away or selling the art. We know nothing of his personal pain…we only see what’s unforgettable.
You are no different.
I’m far from being my Master’s best Tae Kwon Do student but I am the listener that tunes in when the White to Black Belt no longer finds faith in moving forward and feel like quitting. Sitting with them they’re quick to ask, “What’s wrong?” I hold no words because the art of listening requires not my voice but instead a humble willingness to set aside my king sized radio ego and help shape another person’s journey.
Think not of the final presentation of your delivery until you’ve learned to plant a tree. Inside a single blink of the eye you will hold a photograph of the artist standing next to what seemed impossible and now there’s a place for someone you'll never meet to sit in the shade during times when it feels like 300 degrees.
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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