Rumours, Watchmen, and Mental Health

What is Art?

There's an unanswerable question. The American Heritage Dictionary uses the definition...

"The conscious use of the imagination in the production of objects intended to be contemplated or appreciated as beautiful, as in the arrangement of forms, sounds, or words."

That is a good definition but still leaves us with an incomprehensibly vast array of work. The types of art available for consumption paired with the simple fact that art can theoretically become an expensive hobby means that deciding what art a person likes is an even harder question.

And generally, I have been stuck with that question for a lot of my life. My medium as an artist has been stage theatre with music coming in at a close second, but I have never found the artistic medium that speaks to me as an audience member. Yes, I realize that my lack of enthusiasm for consuming my own craft is disorienting, but it's true. The more I have worked to become the artist I want to be, the harder it has been to watch the art that I want to make. So now, in writing, I formally admit that I have consumed an inadequate amount of art in my lifetime. But as I continue to grow, I continue to yearn for a medium that I truly love to consume.

When starting this blog, my intention was to put my thoughts about albums (a section of music that I essentially knew nothing about) out into the world in a mostly comedic but also somewhat sincere way. The result of this though was a gradual and steady increase in my respect and love for "the album" as an art form.

Naturally, the next question that comes after you've found an art form that you like, is what makes a piece of Art in this medium good? Funnily enough, I find that the answer to this question is the same for every Art in every medium. It is the amount of love that is put into a project or piece that creates the one-of-a-kind relationship between Art maker and Art consumer. I do believe that for me, it is as simple as that*.

Rumours is an album that finds itself in the position of being the result of an irrationally large amount of love. To me, the love is audible. In fact, an extremist like myself might go so far as to say that an album such as this IS love, and in a tangible form no less. An interesting concept I think...

Shall we shift for a moment? Yes, I think so.

A couple of days ago I read the critically acclaimed graphic novel Watchmen. I had been chipping my way through the book for some time but finally managed to sit down and plow my way through its densely populated four hundred pages. It was an incredible experience, and one that I very much wish I could have again for the first time. No doubt I will read it again, but it will never be quite as nail-biting and hair-raising as the first go of it. What I want to mention though, is how I was met with a similar feeling as I felt listening to Rumours...that an irrationally large amount of love had been accumulated for the project.

I find these moments unendingly exciting and scary, as I am aware that there are many more experiences like this to have, AND that most of my experiences with Art will NOT be so breathtakingly enthralling. But for both of these pieces, I found a thing that I had been missing. The need to get more. Not the want...the need. It filled my soul in a way that, if you have experienced even only some Art, you know that only Art can. It built up more than an expectation of what the medium could do as a piece of media or entertainment, but rather the knowledge of what emersion and love could come from it. It leaves me consuming more albums and more graphic novels. And more Art is good.

Once again, shall we shift? Yes, thanks.

As I write this the date is July 18th, 2023. It is a Tuesday. I have just returned from an 8-day inpatient stay in the Philhaven Behavioral Health Center. I was admitted on July 10th due to suicidal ideation. I was diagnosed not long after with Borderline Personality Disorder. Thankfully, I never actually harmed myself.

Though I am not a person who deals with chronic depression, depression is a thing that does come. It can at times be hard to imagine our place in this expansive world of unknowns. When we feel lost, what is the way to a quieter place? To a more capable and nurturing place? In few words, what is our purpose?

I do not believe there is one answer to this question for any one person. Even myself I think there are many purposes to life and claiming that one is greater than the others would be a disservice to them all. A key to my own purpose, however, is the creation and consumption of Art. The input and output of passion as it pertains to beauty in the form of movements, pictures, words, sounds, ideas, thoughts, theories, certainties, uncertainties, and concrete creations is a piece of my identity.

I learned very much in my time inside the hospital, and I hope to carry whatever I can of it into the outside world. Among these things is the truth that I have found forms of artistic consumption and creation that I enjoy, and that not continually consuming and creating in these mediums I have found would be a disservice to me.

Thank you to literature, music, and theatre for continuing to be the guide vocal to the audio track of my life.

*It should be noted here that I am assuming the artist in question does actually have the skill to complete the work. I talk of the ability to go from a great piece of art to an almost perfect piece of art. Love is of course, always important, but I could put an enormous amount of love into a painting and it would look like shit...you see?