That's What We Want Our Artists to Do

Terrible, traumatic events have happened around here.  Losing loved ones is one of the most unexplainable, hard to reconcile events you can conjure up. We all lose loved ones, so I guess it's part of being human.

How to deal? 

We turn to what we always turn to - art. The making of art (also of course, the consuming of art created by others). Yes, I subscribe to the school of art as healer, art as religion, art as therapy. No apologies. And it turns out that if the person doing the art, is doing it for very personal reasons, those same reasons can be powerful reasons for others to relate to the art in a very intimate, powerful way.

Art is a human thing, and it is the working through the human thing that brings us the greatest art. Do artists need to suffer in order to create great art? Probably. And why? Because to suffer is a human thing, a deeply profound human thing. We don't need artists to seek suffering, we need artists to live a life, and in the course of life suffering is inevitable. The really great artist uses that suffering to create work, just like they use everything else in the human arsenal.

The true artist takes that suffering, that pain, and transforms it. It's a personal and a universal thing. That's what we want our artists to do.