Originality in the 21st century

When I began to work as an artist I wanted to be completely original, wholly singular. I housed a strong disdain for art history; I didn't want to learn from others or to be influenced by anything. To be influenced at all negated my idea of originality. I wanted to believe that I created in a vacuum, that my thoughts were completely my own. For the same reason I avoided, and still avoid, drugs of any kind, even caffeine for the most part. I didn't want to have to question whether it was my imagination and ingenuity or the influence of some outside factor that created my art.

This was before I took my first art history class, before I worked in a studio with fellow artists and had boundless creative conversations, before I read art criticism and educational theory. In Freire's words, I was ignoring the "tension between the individual and the social practice." In regards to my Enneagram type, which is a 7 for anyone who knows what that means, I was emphasizing my narcissism. I was distrustful, viciously independent, and felt like I needed to prove my artistic integrity.

I vividly remember the day I realized that I had already been influenced, that my culture had already formed and informed me. My associations, my choices, my very ideas had been influenced by the world around me since I first opened my eyes and learned what it meant to scream. After that realization, I opened the floodgates. I had always read anything and everything, unconsciously absorbing the thoughts of my favorite authors, artists, and teachers. But at that point I started to do so consciously, recognizing the connections and revelations that other people could already provide. I learned that I didn't have to reinvent the wheel, or the bicycle, or the car. Those were already done and I could use those ideas to move onto something new and wonderful; something completely my own and yet indebted to the rich history of the world.

My eyes opened to the power of having people agree with you and the joy of reading what you already thought. When I talked about this with my sister, she paraphrased for me what she believes is a George Orwell quote: "The greatest books are the ones that tell us what we already know." Because in this large and lonely world, its always nice to realize that you aren't alone in your thoughts.

When I studied and read for art history, psychology, music, and my many other classes or talked endlessly with about anything and everything anyone who would talk back, I found a ready-made support system, a vibrant creative community that has existed for millennia and that to become part of all I had to do was acknowledge its existence. Suddenly, I was much less lonely.

Now when I read something new, the page is covered with exclamation points and stars. I veer away from drawing hearts around passages to preserve some semblance of dignity, and because hearts don't encircle paragraphs well. When I read, look at art, or find some wonderfully exciting person to talk to, I can barely keep myself contained. I can never keep myself still. My hands fly wider and faster the more enthusiastic I get and I edge forward in my seat until I fly back only to edge forward again. Journals, scraps of paper, and texts to myself contain the ideas that I simply could not keep in my head anymore because I wanted to remember them, to share them as others have shared their ideas with me.

I've always hated when people say that there is no such thing as originality, that everything has already been done. If that were true we would cease to move forward, to make progress, to create. Simply because something has already been written, has already been painted, doesn't mean that when I do it again it isn't original. It is through our unique lenses of the world that we create our originality. Degas's sketch of Botticeli's Birth of Venus may have been a copy of that painting, but it is the original of his sketch. If I were to sketch my own version of Degas's sketch, it would be a copy of a copy. But it would also be a copy of an original, and an original in its own right.

With this in mind, I embrace the ready-made creativity, ingenuity, community of my predecessors and my contemporaries. I put my ideas out into the world and wait to see what new connections will come back.

The Term Itself

As I began my foray into the actual theory and thought of the existing community art world, I encountered a discrepancy at the very entrance: no one knows exactly what to call this field. Arlene Goldbard sticks with Community Cultural Development while Tom Borrup chooses Creative Community Building. These are just two examples of the rampant terms that exist within the field.

At first, deep in the sway of the incredible writing done by each of these practiced community artists, I was simply agreeing with whoever's pages I was devouring at the moment. At the very beginning of her book, New Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development, Goldbard addresses this issue in a section titled "Naming the Practice." She identifies five current terms: community arts, community animation, community-based arts, cultural work, and participatory arts projects. (Her term, Community Cultural Development, she files under this last heading.)

Goldbard chooses not to use Community Art as her key term because it can be, and has been, also "used to describe conventional arts activity based in a municipality" pg 21. Personally, although unlike Goldbard I have barely dipped a toe into this fantastic arena, this association doesn't bother me. This may be because I am approaching the field from the background of visual art and willingly associate myself with "conventional arts activity," or it could just be because I am unseasoned. I'd prefer to think that my conclusions are based on the former, but only time will tell.

Whatever the reason, despite my early infatuation with these authors terms, the more I read the more I feel that sticking with Community Art is most appropriate for me. There's something to be said about simplicity. Even though it may not be as encompassing or accurate, Community Art is a more accessible term than something like creative community building. While the term still needs to be explained, its more immediate. What is community Art? It's art that takes place within and around the community.

For overly intellectual, abstract and theoretical thinkers (or for people pursuing graduate studies) this definition isn't enough - that premise indeed is the base of this blog. Defining a term with its components? That's not deep thinking! But for work within a community, its the right amount of thinking. (Not to say that general community members aren't or wouldn't be interested in the wonderful thinking put into the other terms). Anyone interested can delve into the more specific terms, but Community Art allows the people to take the term, field, and all that goes along with it at face value.

This is all, of course, personal opinion and interpretation coming from someone who considers herself an artist. Going from an artist to a community artist seems much more manageable than becoming a creative community builder or a community cultural developer. It also keeps the person more accepting, accessible and approachable. I'd be much more interested in talking to a Community Artist than a Community Cultural Developer, wouldn't you?