Last week, I flew over two great lakes.
First, lake erie, then lake michigan, which
is particularly dear to me since i spent four
years living on its western coast.
There’s a really lovely moment where, when
you’re looking out your window you can’t
see either edge of it, not even from thirty
thousand feet, and for 90 seconds, it might
as well be an ocean.
And it reminded me of this art exhibit at
my college campus, where this artist Kevin
Miyazaki, drove around the whole perimeter
of the lake, taking identical pictures of
the horizon line all along the way.
But each photo looked entirely different.
The water could be blue, or a turbulent black,
or a shimmering green, or a gray that was
indistinguishable from the sky.
The way that lake could look was always changing,
and it was beautiful.
The art had been commissioned by a professor
I had for a class called philosophy of art,
who gave me so much hell.
Because he asked these big jerkoff questions
like what is art and how do we know when something
counts as art.
And it drove me crazy because I couldn’t
stand to read another essay by another dead
rich white guy philosopher trying to answer
this question by writing another 40 pages
about Marcel Duchamp’s goddamn urinal.
So I talked about it.
I talked about how I don’t think it’s
fair that something gets called art because
somebody decided to put it in a dusty old
museum.
There’s these people who make these decisions...the
art world...that wasn’t in any way revolutionized
just because some dude got a urinal in an
art show.
Not when this world they’ve created still
shuts so many people out.
But every time I tried to contribute to the
class discussion, I felt like he would push
me more, pick apart my ideas more.
I was convinced he like he had it out for
me.
So I came back harder.
I ended up writing my term paper on graffiti
culture.
The title of my paper could have been eff
your art world.
What i love about graffiti is that the people
who are at the top of the game of art outside
museums look a lot different than the people
whose paintings hang inside.
There’s no barrier to entry to look at it,
and a way lower barrier to make it too.
It’s not pretentious about itself.
It’s just there in the streets.
No one can buy it, no one can pay for it.
And in a couple of days it could be gone.
Some days, There are bright colors.
Saturated blues and greens and blacks.
The next, the wall gets painted over in a
clinical gray, indistinguishable from the
sky.
It’s always changing.
And it’s beautiful.
That professor gave me an A, by the way, and
shortly after, that series of photos showed
up on campus.
Photos of Lake Michigan, with a dusty old
art museum that i love hanging over its shoreline,
Always changing.
And I knew he was on my side.
In the comments, tell me about your favorite
lake, or your favorite art, or your favorite
teachers.
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in the links below, and I will see you next
week.
Bye!
And I will see you next week.
Bye.
