A Debauchery of Spleen

Google says no one else has used that phrase on the searchable internet yet, so I’m going to stake my claim. Booyah!

So, by now most of you readers will have realized that much of what I go off raving about I am only doing for effect. I want to draw people’s attention to something, but to do so I have to almost create a scene.  There are things I want to talk about, things that I think are important, but its difficult to present them in plain English. Mostly we are too busy to pay attention. So I sometimes feel I have little choice but to go off half cocked and start firing away at the crowd (and occasionally wince as I hit unintended targets and innocent bystanders. My sincere apologies to you all….).

So my methods probably seem a bit strange. Consider it tongue in cheek, or maybe half tongue in cheek. I like to think of it as poetic license. I always think of it as what art is really all about: Thinking for one’s self, thinking outside the box, investigating the world, creating new meaning, adding something valuable to the world, and striving to make the world a better place. When you get right down to it I think art is ANY manifestation of those things. It is not circumscribed by a particular medium, or discipline, or practice of working. And it certainly isn’t limited by an ability to carry a price tag. It is simply a person’s attempts recreate the world according to the values that person thinks are important. What else does “aesthetics” refer to? What else is the proper domain of the creative impulse? War? Greed?

So call me out for a Libra. There are things I care about. So shoot me. I have already confessed to being a chaser of soap bubbles, so let me take it one step further: I have hope. I hope that the world can be a better place. I hope that our children and grandchildren will live in circumstances of opportunity that would astound us. I want to believe in change. I want to believe that doing the right thing makes a difference. And I want to believe that its not wrong to dare these things.

So enough already with my incessant blathering, my debauchery of spleen. Let me direct your attention to our fellow potter/blogger Kyle Hauser’s latest post. In it he gives us a glimpse about the ‘big picture’ that I’ve been moaning about. It really does matter, and it really does effect us.

But for now let me step off the soapbox. I can feel it starting to wobble beneath me. Maybe that’s the ground shaking as my audience flees the scene, or maybe its just from all the laughter at my insane antics. Then again, I could be drunk.

Later, all. Have a wonderful weekend, filled with beauty and fun and creativity.