Why make art?

Why write? Why paint? Why make music? Why make films and produce plays?

In my voice 2 class with Barbara Samuel, we're talking about callings--specifically, for our class, being called to write. I've been thinking about that a lot for the last week.

Did you see the speeches Glenn Hansard and Marketa Irglova gave when they won the Academy Award for Best Original Song this year? Glenn's final statement as he held out the Oscar was, "Make art! Make art!" I wish I could write it the way he said it in his charming Irish accent, but please use your imagination. Something like, "Mek arrrdt! Mek arrrdt!" Then, Marketa's historical recall speech where she was able to express her pleasure in receiving such an honor on the behalf of so many independent artists who rarely see that kind of reward.

But, why? Why make art?

Last week, my family explored the exhibits at the Amon Carter Museum and walked the paths of the Ft. Worth Botanic Gardens, pointing out the pieces and flowers to each other that most caught our attention.

A few weeks ago, my friend Gail and I talked about why we liked to go to movies, and the incomparable feeling of sinking into a theater seat and being swept away to another world, even if only for 90 minutes.

I hear you, but what's your point?

In the midst of a pretty emotional week for me, it truly hit home for me. I'm reading The Mermaid Chair, by Sue Monk Kidd. Several times this morning, I stopped to read a line or paragraph more than once. I said to myself,

"That's exactly how I would have put it if only I were so brilliant!"

The bits and pieces resonated with me, showed me truths I didn't even realize were there inside me, gave me some needed internal peace.

Then, this afternoon I lit candles, turned on my CD player, and had some bubble bath therapy. I played a CD I haven't listened to in ages. In fact, I'm not sure I ever listened to it closely before, as I did today. Several songs spoke to me out loud, in a way that showed me answers to questions nagging at me this week.

I'm sure there are many reasons to make art that I haven't even begun to contemplate--as many reasons as there are people who make it and people who partake of it. But it occurred to me today that art is simply one way to experience, from my perspective,

a little perfection here on earth.

Not that art is perfect. But as writers, painters and sculptors, filmmakers, songwriters, or any of the other myriad ways in which we make art, we have the ability to create something that for someone, somewhere, in that moment, is perfect.

It might be just what they need to see or hear or touch to keep going.

So, make art.

Come away to sea

Chorus

This simple craft I play upon

Is made from wooden parts

It's never sailed an ocean

But it sure can sail my heart

And if you feel the music

Then we've raised another sail

The ocean wraps this world around

The wind will never fail

(David Wilcox, from Nightshift Watchman)