Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Video, Blog, Art

I made a really good video for this fundraiser: go watch it before alien squids eat your face!





The Disconnect

We do what we love, we follow our passion. We make our art because we have to. Asking for money in exchange for art is a strange concept. I won' sweep your floor unless you pay me but I will write songs no matter what. My creative output is not dependent on monetary contributions.

Well: everything is connected, and all things are affected by the environment in which they exist. So an artist making money will have more resources at hand in order to make the art. And a starving man will only make grumbling sounds with his stomach. But beyond the basic necessities and some resource issues, we make art because it is as compulsory as breathing.

To put that art out into the world is an entirely different matter. To attempt to 'make a living' off something as intrinsic as breathing seems somehow wrong. And yet the effort to make art is great. Blood, sweat, tears and more. Art consumes us, chews on our bones, has it's way with us. Sometimes to connect to the art we disconnect from the world. We cannot sleep, we cannot eat, we forget our grandmothers' birthdays.

To further our art we hurl ourselves down into the rabbit hole, blind faith tells us it leads to a new universe, reason tells us we are mad. And since we live in a world which insists quite unreasonably that reason is the order of the day we are made mad by our choice to be mad.

But is isn't a choice, no not really. We can stay on the surface and let the tattered and forgotten beauty of our dreams drive us slowly into the death of the mind and soul, or we can dive deep, down into the thick soupy abyss of the creative force that spawned us and lose the thin threads of reason that keep us tied to the 'reasonable' persons on the surface.

And somewhere in here, in the midst of this and that, the surface and the abyss, the beauty and the boredom, the guitar and the television, we must make our way to eat, must remember to keep one golden shining thread trailing back up to the light above - our life line. We must remember how to speak to others, how to ask for what we need. We must do the unthinkable and ask for sustenance so that we might breathe.

I'm going off the deep end friends. Follow me or feed me. Maybe both.

If I forget how to talk please remember: I always loved you.

3 comments:

  1. And my wife and I love you too. We can't wait to hear your music. I will donate later today. keep up your art :)

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  2. The video is awesome. I wanted to donate and then realised that both of my cards are maestro, so i guess i'll give you some physical euros when i'll catch you up at a concert in berlin soon. LOVE.
    (the live recordings are insane, your voice = so moving)

    (previous comment = wrong post. tut mir leid.)

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  3. Wow, that video is amazing! I'm starting to wonder just how many talents you really have!!

    Creation is both selfish and selfless. To give yourself over fully to the work you have to isolate yourself from the people around you, from the world around you, but you do it solely tocreate somethin beautiful for the world to enjoy. I can see how keeping the balence would be very difficult. So much about the human world is nonsensical, and reason has little to do with normalcy. I admire you for being able to give yourself over completly, and fllowing you and feeding you while you do it is pretty amazing! Please know through it all that you are loved.

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