What wouldn’t we do to be loved? I, for one, tired or not, wake up every morning at seven to take the dogs out. Why? Of course, it’s partly because I don’t want to get poop all over the place, but mainly because I want my dogs to love me. When the mailman brings, day after day, my neighbor’s bills in my mailbox, do I flush the stack? No! I put on a nice big smile on my face, knock at my neighbor’s door and kindly give him the crap. Why? Love! And, the other day, when that stupid young brat on roller blades yelled at me to shove off because he wasn’t able to stop and I was in his way, I could have stretched a leg sending the kid flying in the bush. No! I gently pushed away repressing my will to kill, or, at least, to hurt him like hell. Why? Love! We, humans, are like that. We’ll do anything to be loved; that’s what makes mankind so lovable and so many human beings a pain in the ass.
However, we must be careful not to over-do it. What about your dentist? Does he have any choice? He must pull that aching tooth out, love or not. And what about the policeman, when you miss a stop sign? Can he be lovable? And your doctor, and the mailman with your stack of bills, and the teacher when your kid just broke the dean’s office window with a golf ball (What the hell was he doing with a golf ball at school?), and the guy writing to you about that income tax you “forgot” to pay. What about those who can’t be lovable just because it’s their job to be obnoxious? Somebody has to do the dirty jobs!
What about the artists? Almost all of them are normal human beings (Here, I could put a few names but I want so much to be lovable!). This morning, I saw on Facebook photos of an opening at a nearby gallery. The guy wanted so much to be loved; or, maybe he needed desperately to eat. Frankly, it was sickening! Huge portraits of Marilyn Monroe (Yes! Some artists are that desperate!); huge portraits of Einstein (Albert; not Franck); huge portraits of Elizabeth Taylor before she started to droop; huge portraits of what I presume to be a local female singer with surgically enhanced and probably sexy lips. I am sure the guy must sell. Just the kind of paintings people buy to decorate a living room and try to sell at a garage sale when they change decoration.
This is what I find profoundly fair about art. It is not that hard to sell like a whore. Whores can be lovable. As a matter of fact, isn’t it what they sell, love, or some kind of love? At least they try their best to be lovable even if they think the client looks like a stinking beast.
Everybody has a role to play in society. The preacher preaches, the teacher teaches, the manager manages and the secretary secretes. But, what about the visual artist? They, too, have a role to play in society. But their role is certainly not to please at any price or to produce pieces that would inevitably find some jerk to buy it just because “it looks so much like art”!
What exactly is the role of the visual artist? It is not for me to answer. I wouldn’t even try to answer such a question (Remember, I want so much to be lovable).
All I know is that there is an unrelenting justice in Art. If an artist doesn’t fairly play the role he was born to play, sooner or later, he ends up in a garage sale.
Comeau
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