Art Survives

This morning as I awakened to my husband's favorite TV chanel, I became aware that the subject they were discussing was basing its facts on art, ancient art.  My husband can't sleep if the TV isn't running.  The outside noises which I love, the train passing, owls calling, cars going by, sirens, dogs barking...OK - I take it back. It wakes me up too. But he can sleep through the loudest of TV shows.  It has taken me 40 years to get to a point where I can sleep through most of the night without some loud commercial waking me. Or an old western with guns blazing.  I used to turn it off. But it always awakend my spouse. The quiet awakened my husband; still does. I have gotten past the annoyance of the noise dragging my mind from deep sleep, and have learned to lie still if possible. Sometimes, when my mind is quite sure there is no emergency that requires I drag my body up to take care of it, I can go back to sleep. Unless I see daylight. Then I make myself get up. Of course, the older I get, the more the bathroom is calling, and I have to go tend to it. However, I hate sleeping in the day. Mostly, because I hate being awake in the night. Alas, if I want to see my husband, I have to deal with the night.

Now that I am past that little aside, let me get to what was on the TV. The host of the program was a world traveler, and he was telling the story of visiting anceint sites, and how they knew certain things about those sites. He explained that the surviving art on the walls, pottery, coffins, floors, etc. of these ancient places gave the documentation needed to understand life, in places where entire societies had worn away 'til little remained but the art. Great plains of sand which once covered the social hubs of ancient life, look lifeless and dull in color. Once the archeologists, remove the sand, the bleached ruins of buildings just look like a lot of sand colored stones, until enough sand is removed to find the jewels that time left behind. In ancient days, the keyboard and monitor of the artists and writers was literally their "wall paper." Only, there was no paper involved in most cases. Can you imagine writing your daily news by carving it with a chisel on the wall? No blaring noise to keep you awake there, huh?  Well think again. How many wives couldn't sleep cause hubby hadn't finished his story? See how we can see them in their everyday lives? Just knowing this activity of carving a record into walls was going on, we can have an image of what their lives were like.
The host of the show was tracing how crocodiles played a crucial role in the everyday lives of this race of people.  A certain kind of croc was depicted in the ancient texts, on walls and pottery, and even in the way they buried their dead. A certain mummy was artfully wrapped in reeds in such a way that the corpse resembled a crocodile. That would have taken a loving touch, and an imagination to rival an archetectural design. Who could have thought of such an idea, but an artist. Not to mention the head dressings and masks they wore that were shaped like crocodiles.
I have known from childhood that I saw things differently than other people. As a child, however, I was glad it made me unique. As an adult, it has been difficult to find respect. People put art into a category of "oh that's nice, but how is it going to help me?"  My aunt once said that if members of our family could just figure out how to make money on our talents, we would be millionaires. Not so, I have tried numerous forms of art: making and tayloring clothes, crafts, floral design, baking, photograghy and painting... Not a millionaire yet. Art had traditionally been less valued than things like food, clothes, home, car...etc. I get it. Art is not necessary in our lives for anything but asthetics.  It makes our home have color, our cars look classy, our clothes be pleasant to look at, our emotions to spark. Although it is in almost everything we own, "art" as a profession is a hard one to pursue.  Although, it is less so in the age of technology, the market is flooded with "artists" all wanting an outlet for their art. It isn't that artists lack the intelligence to be successful business men, but that there isn't enough time in two lifetimes to both make the art and make a business of it. And artists will follow their love, be who they are inside, and will make the art whether money is involved or not. It is constantly inside, clamouring to get out.
I worry a bit about carving our art into a technological pallet. I have recipes and pictures on 4x4 disks, and journals on 5x5" floppies that I will never see again.  I look at the piles of disks with pictures and design work on them, and I think there is no way I can transfer all that to thumb drives, or tiny scan disks. Of course, before I could get it done, a new way to store it will come along. In fact, now they want you to put it into an invisible mystical place in the cyber universe, where it is deemed to be safe. Someday it will all magically dissapear.
 When architects of the future look into our homes, they will just find a lot of silver disks and wonder what we ever saw in keeping those things around. They will ask if we used them somehow in a religious ritual.  Isn't it funny that every antiquity found has someone put a religious ritual significance on it.  Shoot, maybe it was just a game or news or ART.  Regardless, from ancient days 'til now, it is the art that survived.  When people are gone, what will tell the story of our lives?  If the Lord were to tarry 1000 years more, will archeologists find a buried vault and open it to find great works of art, or will they just find landfill sites where hulls of monitors, printers and CPU's survive?  Maybe we should fill our lives with Hard copies of it. Shouldn't we be carving into walls or something? Can someone invent a stone-cutting machine that's super fast? lol
I have to admit, I love doing it this way, recording whatever I can create and store on my computer. After all, it's for people in my world to see and enjoy, and for me to enjoy making. It will not make a significant difference in how someone views history. So for now, I am loving having a cyber-world trash can to cast my art into.
Wish my scanner worked, cause I have this great photo of an ancient Indian face carved into a stone wall in the Florida keys. I stumbled onto it in the woods and brambles, while hunting the Mangrove Cuckoo, of which I also have a picture. But alas, I have a hard copy, and you can't see it. So sad.
Have a great day!!