the luxury/responsibility of artists

So I read this interview with a musician named Derek Webb.  I like his art.  These quotes about art and artists made me think.

"Part of the luxury of being an artist is that you not only can but kind of have a responsibility to think long and hard about things on behalf of those who might listen to your music. You can give them a jumping off point for subject matter that might be too tangled for most people in the busyness of their daily lives. I think there are a lot of smart people out there who honestly just don't have the time to think through some of these issues, and it becomes easier to watch CNN, to watch Fox News, to read some random blog and just get your answers and talking points from those kinds of places."

"Sometimes all people need is a little shove, and I feel like artists can play a really unique role by taking advantage of the luxury of being able to think through these issues of culture and life and then distill those thoughts down into just a couple minutes, put a little melody with it -- something to help the medicine go down -- and give people something to react to, [so] that they might begin to form their own opinions."

Does this jive with your view of artists, art, and such?  Do artists have this responsibility, or do you think this is an opportunity, something optional that they can do if they choose?

Bonhoeffer and Feiffer walk into a bar . . .

There are just too many great looking biographies! I can't keep up! Here are a couple of newish ones I'm particularly excited about.

1. Jules Feiffer's Backing Into Forward: Really, I just want an excuse to read The Man in the Ceiling again. If you're an artist of any stripe, I dare you to read that book and not cry at the end. That book is where I first encountered Feiffer (and the first middle grade book I read that involved comics drawn by the main character), and it was a tiny glimpse at what has made him such an outspoken titan. I'd like to find out more about his remarkable life; I think he would be an interesting artist to know.  Seriously, go read The Man in the Ceiling.  It was just as invigorating and revolutionary to my young artist's soul as Potok's My Name Is Asher Lev.
2. Dietrich Bonhoeffer as seen by Eric Metaxas in Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: As if the title doesn't say enough about why I want to read this one, which is mammoth, by the way. I've heard about the pastor and martyr parts, but most sermons don't mention much about the spy part (or the prophet part). I respect his commitment to doing everything he could to do good and stem evil's tide based on what he believed was right. In the end, it got him killed, but he didn't go silently or without doing good on his way out.

Will I ever get to either of them?  Who knows.  I'll definitely read The Man in the Ceiling next time I'm about to let my failures kill my desire to create art.

Do either of these look good to you?  Any biographies you've been eying or reading lately?

When everything falls: Finding Beauty in a Broken World

It's a good think I put off reading Terry Tempest Williams' Finding Beauty in a Broken World until after I finished my thesis because she does what I was trying to do better than I could. She takes the idea of mosaic and weaves actual mosaic making and art into her story of trying to piece together something meaningful out of the fragments that are left of our lives when everything falls apart. As soon as I finish the memoir I'm reading right now, I will dive in to this, and I will have plenty of tissues.

When life shatters you, make a mosaic.  Good advice.  :)

Giving "genre fiction" a fair shake

"I really wish people would give the individual stories a chance without having to quantify them as a certain thing or another. They’re missing out on a lot of really awesome books I think."

An artist I admire said this about graphic novels here, but I thought about it when I finished reading When You Reach Me, the book that won the Newberry Award (best middle grade/children's book) this year.  It's an amazing book; really well-done and gripping, and it stars a protagonist who loves A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle.  It's a short, sweet, suspenseful, action-packed coming-of-age/school/family/friendship/mystery story that has a genre-rific twist.  It also has some fun physics. And it's short, somehow, despite having all that packed into it.

This year has shown that awards committees for kids' and teen's fiction like physics.

Anyway, if someone asked me what genre this book is, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't try to tell them.  I'd just tell them to read it, and they'd probably love it.  Who cares what "genre" it is?  It's a great book!