Being An Artist 

How different and how involved should an artist be with his creation? Going beyond the social restrictions, seeking beneath the layers of meanings, and questioning the authority.

Artists are mediators, and in speaking for others, they become the others. What if I say an artist should go all the way from being normal and keep up with her art? They bleed into created laughter, get attached to some ideology and philosophy, and spend years at the same level of curiosity, doing the same things—writing, making music, travelling or acting with different roles. In repetition, there is a revelation that keeps the artist moving, and the idea of passion as a new necessity is the path artists seek. An artist is an observer, a seeker, so drenched in passion who has found a way out and finally created something. I believe the normal order is transformed into some other form, rather than calling it a disruption.

Artists are not only seekers, but they are also the ones who find some meaning in their vocations. Being an artist is a self-chosen destiny. You feel too much, and the world is too loud even when it carries a secret. The great feeling of having to feel something, to make the aftermath of solitude heard, the bell keeps ringing for an artist.

An artist also heals in the process. For a writer, script therapy works like building a home for a sweet family. Artists create a new world in their works, and is the world normal? The world has its shattering realities that are fragile. A great American writer, James Baldwin, said, "The world is held together, really it is held together, by the love and the passion of a very few people.” An artist tries to paint the fractured world and show it forever on the canvas—I, too, believe that is how the light gets in. The process is itself a blessing. I think of Van Gogh and Kafka, not famous during their lifetimes but who finally conquered death and are forever alive. Maybe with each stroke of the brush and with each doubtful swiftness of the pen, they were alive. On an emotional level, an artist grows maturely. To love madly and not weigh love. Despite everything, running away and finally finding oneself. An artist builds a home, a community, and the world witnesses what it cannot hide.

Normalcy is like not taking part in an adventure for the sake of fear. No boundaries can push back the eruption of creativity. Discovery is the new atom of inner desire to have a magnetic pull towards what artists call life. Some study people, some study the inner dialogues of the past through books, and some dwell in living an untold life—but this has changed with technology at our disposal. The process of finding something is the awakening of desire. Normalcy would be not to go so far as to risk everything for the sake of art. To not live by fearing death? This is the question every artist despises.

The world is a book, and artists are those who experiment with the limits of time. They live forever through ages. Are you a reader of art? That should alone inculcate a passion in you—to live life as it comes, which is an art. To see a smile in your children, to help your parents, to encourage your friend by instilling some hope—I think we are all artists of our own consciences. We are not normal because life breaks us. We try to do something about it; we might destroy while we seek, but we tend to keep up the spirit of realisation. Emotions change people—artists play with emotions. Do you think a work of fiction or a poem is possible without playing with one’s emotions?

Life gets normal, and we try to act or be creative during those normal hours—that is also breaking away from normality. We sing, we play the tune, we communicate, and we reach out. It fuels our art, we feel human.

The social responsibility of an artist is to transcend reality or to represent the society as it is. Writer Saadat Hasan Manto comes to my mind when I talk about representing the society as it is. In his stories, he shows the shame of the society that is foul, vulgar and demeaning, and writing should not try to hide it—it can be represented as it is. Manto’s stories have themes of prostitution too, and he believes if prostitution happens in the real world, why should a writer feel shame to express it in his words? The goal is not to support prostitution but to show its negative impact. I truly believe that, in the context of writers, they should truly understand the real world. Not studying the society and only creating abstract art will at least not help in creating a humanitarian artist—the soul is in understanding a fellow human or touching people’s hearts. 

Abstract arts can represent social aspects, importantly in a more heightened form. All I am trying to say is that an artist should not be ignorant and too self-satisfied. He or she should try to fill the void between social reality and imagination. And the path in between comes from being involved in playing with the reality and creating something unique that fills the gap. This is the social responsibility of an artist. After all, an artist is also offering a new reality to the world. Artists should keep pushing the boundaries. 

An art is always a new dimension in its own offerings that transport us to a world of its own. How a reader or a listener or a spectator of art perceives the art should be able to change his view regarding the world—it should add something new, whether a change in perception or inspiration to create. An artist always imitates, and that is the concept of mimesis. An artist imitates the world and creates a new world. Novels are also a new world; dramas being written and acted bring expectations in the eyes of the spectators or even create catharsis. The audience feel that their own worries are nothing in comparison to the tragedy they see on stage. We have been placed in this world, and we are storytellers (even interpreting a dream makes us storytellers), and that is what makes us artists. 

(Thapa is a writer who holds an MA in English from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.)