Art vs Reality

"You left the cap off the toothpaste.  I can't deal with this.  I'm gone."

Always gnawing at the back of my mind is the question of my place in the world and how I interact with it.  I would say its a blanket statement for most humans (especially those of a Christian-Mennonite(?) background-being 'in the world but not live of it' 2 Cor 10:3), but I can't be so certain.  I will speak for myself as that is what I am most well-versed in.  I overheard the beginning phrase in passing as a woman was reaming some person on the phone on the bus westbound on Roosevelt a few weeks ago.

I've made it a practice to discover great interactions or words that I've observed on public transportation and write them down on a list of 'just bits'.  Not only does it make my commute go faster, but it exercises my imagination and tunes my ear. In the early morning and 5 o'clock rush hour when the sardines stand quietly waiting their turn to shuffle off the train, I make back stories for them (once I did it for each person in the entire car-the simple pleasures of life).  I think it is my way of humanizing the randos that I meet (or ignore) in every day life.  Its hard to spend a large part of your day inches away from people you know absolutely nothing about!

My art right now is business. I am seeking out what makes me most hire-able, what will secure the best part for me, what tools will market me best, what my tools are that make me marketable, who can help me, who can hurt me; the list is endless. So where is the 'show' in 'show business'? I think at this point in my career it is inevitable that much of the attention is toward monologues and cold reads and website prep and on and on.

But there is story freaking everywhere.

Sometimes I think that my art would be useless if people opened their eyes and pulled their earbuds out and saw and listened.

Anna Deveare Smith in her book 'letters to a young artist' talks about art vs reality and what the differences are (p123-130).  I don't know why I landed on this chapter in particular, but it intrigues me: especially with the day-to-day observations I've found joy in. She says a lot that's poignant and great (as usual), but I believe her crux of the section comes here:

"Art has a frame; it has a form.  I don't know if life, or reality, has such a frame.  There is order to how we are as living organisms, but is there a frame?  Some would say yes.  Others would say it's random.  The real question is, why do you ask the question?" (p126)

Art is beautifully biased. The artist is the frame.  Storytellers are needed for perspective. She continues after a brief rant:

"An Artist is a collector of life's moments, a memorizer of its images. Yet art is always much more than the sum of its parts.  It always gets right to our souls; it gets right to our core values - values we didn't even know we had." (p128)

Holla. I think I knew this already but sometimes the right words clear things up that are too dusty to understand (oh, hello again art).

So is the act of stepping back and observing people and hearing voice an act of art as well?

"No, because art requires more than the ability to step back....It requires that you make something else exist that is a representation of what your feeling is." (p129). 

I feel like I need to draw a picture of this to enjoy it more. But goodness knows I would fail miserably.

I'll continue to observe and love it. And I can't wait to represent my feelings about those little bits. Art! Yay!