When I was younger I thought that art was poetry, drawing, painting, or sculpting. I could draw things very well. People recognized the things that I was drawing. I was an artist. However, I didn't understand people that could stare at a painting in a museum for more than a couple minutes. What were they looking at? The brush strokes? The details? Some of these paintings didn't even have many details. Then there was those "weird people" that would be doing some random act that seemed to have no meaning and call it "art."
As I got older I began to understand. In fact, it was perhaps only even a few years ago. Not only that, but I started to see art beyond just rhyming words and having people recognize your sketches. I even started to FEEL something while watching someone do a "random act." I took a meaning out of it, sometimes a few meanings. Not only did I understand that the performer was trying to say something, but I felt that I understood what that artist was trying to say. Sometimes I had multiple ideas of what they meant and sometimes my opinions changed when I saw or thought about it again later. The act seemed to change with me and reflect what I was going through. It was as if the artist was telling me a secret, something only the two of us had gone through. Perhaps other people went through something similar, but only YOU went through the same thing.
I don't mean to tell you what art is or even what is artistic. I only plan on showing you a few of my inspirations, some may not technically even be "art." Many of them won't be considered art by everyone, however, I share these things for a few reasons, not all of which I'll explain.
Art can inspire, connect, and enlighten.
Let's begin.
The Writing's on the Wall
I originally planned on writing about something completely different than this, that is until I saw the new OK GO music video. I actually plan on writing about OK GO in a later post, but this was too cool to pass up, plus everyone likes something NEW! Here's the video if you haven't yet seen it.
I have a sort of love/hate relationship with music, mostly a loving relationship though. Music is this invisible force that can travel through space to affect multiple people all at once. It's just not even fair sometimes! Music often receives instant recognition from people as a beautiful talent and an emotional experience. It is, that's just that. It IS an amazing and beautiful talent. With that said, you'll have to do more than just sing nicely to make my Random Acts list. OK GO, however, does so much more than just play nice music.
The thing that I found while watching this video was that the music, at first, was secondary to everything going on. Each visual piece of art in the music video was pretty awesome and took much of my attention. I noticed the music and definitely thought it was nice, but I wasn't fully aware of the message. It seemed pretty upbeat and I liked it, that was about the extent of my thoughts. However, about halfway through the song I read the "I think I understand you, but I don't" message and my thoughts begin to shift. I instantly start to recall past moments in my life, a past relationship, where things were starting to unravel. Suddenly a clever video has caused me to relive a moment, something that feels like a life-time ago. I find myself much more aware of the lyrics as the second half of the video plays.
I don't want to write everything I thought during the video and the song, but I'd love to strike up a conversation in the comments, on Twitter, or on Facebook.
Thank you for reading. Feel free to share the blog or check out some of the things I do. I have new videos coming each Monday (#MagicMonday)
- Steve
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