This is why I want to draw you a picture...

So, what’s the reason for this blog…? I guess it all started when a friend pestered me to stop wasting my time with immature teen-filled writing communities and start a blog and connect to real writers. I didn’t really know what to do, I didn’t have a topic of discussion, and my daily life was way too boring to describe. As for my interests, let’s just say I’m a minimalist.
So what was I to write about? Did I really have something interesting to show? Some time passed and one day I was accidentally hit by an idea - art. What is art? What does it say about the artist? And what does the artist say about us all? After all art is often inspired or expresses the world. Behind this idea of mine, as it is with most inspirations, there’s a story.

Not too long ago I was happily chatting with a friend who was extremely excited for finally finding the time to finish a new Photoshop piece for her DeviantArt account. Show me, I said, and so she did. It was a nice surreal photo manipulation, I said. But a something wasn’t quite right; a feeling that something eluded me haunted me. What is the idea behind it, I asked? What was she trying to get across? The answer to this, however, was not what I had expected. In fact, I didn’t get one at all. There is no meaning, she said, she was simply trying out “unconventional surrealism,” whatever the heck that meant to her.

There wasn’t a meaning behind the picture? I was shocked. It was just a picture, a collage of photos forming a coherent but lacking a symbolic meaning piece of art? Art? Is this really what art is? More upset than I logically should have been I went on a rant. Isn’t art such, precisely because there’s a meaning behind it? Isn’t it the material representation of the ideas, the thoughts, the mind of the author? How could a mash of pictures, as shiny and well blended as they were, be art when there was no thought behind it? How did she create it at all when there was no idea to support it? Had she randomly mixed pictures and called it surrealism, just because she and no idea what she wanted to do? That’s not what surrealism is. I know what surrealism is. It’s my field of art after all. On and on I went. Her piece simply couldn’t be art. There was no appeal to it at all. It was empty, hollow, it lacked a soul. My reaction I blame on art school. All the way through it I was told to present and explain the ideas and thoughts behind every technique I used, every single piece I produced. They had to be carefully thought through, executed, and then presented to the rest of the class. It was not only a part of our grade but a way to understand ourselves and become true artists, to evolve. We didn’t pick up the brush and draw just for the sake of it. We did it because we had something to say. We used art to express ourselves. That’s precisely what art is, for me, an expression of the artist. If there’s no meaning, no thought behind it, can't the same be said about the artist?

                Having chased away my friend, I finally began cooling down. Still outraged I began thinking. Was it really my friend’s fault? How is art presented by the modern world? What do I see when I look at the world of popular media around me. When I turn on the TV, the radio, go to the cinema, or simply glance at the billboards and store decoration. Then it struck me, I finally realized. No one seems to know what true art is anymore. And the few that did were hardly ever noticed and appreciated. They were secluded in hard-to-find galleries, or obscure movie festivals. In short most good art is limited to the artistic world, hidden from the rest of society, and the rest of society has only the mainstream crap to judge what being artist means.

                Now let me clarify. I don’t see myself as an artist. I took up and dropped painting over and over again until I was finally convinced I simply lacked what it took to be a painter. But, as every artistic person would know, there’s this inner urge that just won’t stop nagging, look what a great idea, draw it, paint it, write it, do something, let it out. It’s much like schizophrenia with the lack of inner voices, which would actually sometimes be useful... ideas can be pretty vague and confusing without a voice. So having discovered the wondrous world of literature, I had previously avoided as the plague, I simply switched to writing. Then I blindly plunged into the realm of mass media and communications and ended up where culture and society met. And so here I am now, still searching for my voice and taking brave steps towards it. I hope.

But let me explain my topic better. For that I have another little story for you, a story of the past. A story of a time long before history. When our great ancestors gathered around the evening fire, after a hard day of work for survival. Back then they did not have a TV, they did not have a radio, or any other technological gadgets which are now irreplaceable part of our lives. Instead they sang, they danced, and they spoke, re-enacted adventures, tales of great bravery or fear, they found creative ways to entertain themselves. With time this primitive entertainment grew and evolved until one day the monster we call modern media was formed. Cinema, TV, movies, paintings, songs, books, I can go on forever. But what does this say about art, what does it say about us, how much has it changed since the time of our ancestors?

Art is the expression of an artist.  Inspired though harmony or discord, freedom or oppression, beauty or ugliness, the artists create, they are the “expression” of a culture, of a society. Culture and individual give birth to art. Then it is society that dictates what enters the realm of popular media, and what sinks with the ship. The amount of people affected by the art, the number of those who noticed, and were left with an impression, is what defines its popularity. Simply glancing at the mass media we can see the state and culture of its society.

This is exactly what I’ll attempt to do. Draw you a picture of the world through popular art: music, movies, literature, and the media in general. I’ll try to show you both its beautiful and ugly side and make a guess as to why it is the way it is. Sometimes it will be a magical journey, others a tale of terror, and on occasions simply a rant with no direction. But nevertheless I hope it manages to entertain you.