“Are you an artist?” I hesitate. I shrug my shoulders. I reflect back on paintings of giraffes and cardboard box amusement parks that littered my childhood bedroom. “I don’t know. I guess I used to be.” Todd, a regular at the restaurant where I work, doesn’t accept this answer. “I see what you wear every day to work. I see how you interact with people and how you hold yourself. I’m going to ask you again: are you an artist?” I’m embarrassed. I know the answer he wants but I can’t seem to claim it. My mom might answer that I am an intellectual; my dad that I am an athlete. An artist – what have I done to deserve this title? I deflect with another question: “What makes somebody an artist?” Todd pauses. In his youth, Todd roamed ‘90s Boulder with a guitar in hand, working part-time at a restaurant but mostly playing music in the streets. Now he rocks long hair and the wrinkled wisdom of decades of mountain sun. He doesn’t indulge me in games of self-denial or doubt. “You’re an artist, Molly.” I’m left to make sense of this for myself.
Art Sex Music, a lengthy autobiography by legendary English performance artist and musician, Cosey Fanni Tutti, helps inform my nascent definition. The discordant chaos characteristic of Throbbing Gristle, the provocative performances accompanying their music (i.e., swinging from a harness and pissing all over the crowd), and years of stripping & pornographic modelling comprise a life that is unconventional and incredibly enticing. More than the shock & glamour of these acts is the struggle, uncertainty, drama, and loneliness that accompanies them, all of it coalescing into a beautiful mosaic that perfectly embodies Tutti’s mantra: “My life is my art.” I take note. Life as art: spontaneous, unexpected, abstract, tumultuous, incomprehensible, unique.
Cosey Fanni Tutti’s mantra complements Mahatma Ghandi’s response to a British journalist asking for a message to take home to his people at a train station in Bengal: “My life is my message.” How powerful is this statement compared to some self-righteous platitude, which requires perfection and invites hypocrisy? What you decide to do, how you decide to act, how you treat others, what you decide to fight for, combines to form the basis of who you are. More than a series of actions and inactions spanning the course of your life, your life as message is embodied right now, in this exact moment. How you decide to take a sip of coffee, how you rise from your chair, how you greet your neighbor and start your car is all the embodiment of your message. “Drinking a bowl of green tea, I stop the war.” Life as message: honest, simple, precise, compelling.
I ponder my life as art and as message. I think of my predecessors and role models, both the acclaimed and the ordinary. I think of Andy Kaufman and Hannah Hoch and the old woman dancing alone at dusk in San Francisco’s Alamo Square. I think of Allen Ginsburg and Cheryl Strayed and rock-and-roll Jesus storming down the Venice Boardwalk in rollerskates. I think of Ram Dass and Aldous Huxley and my friend Tyler’s sister who abandoned her college degree & familial acceptance in exchange for monasticism. I am reminded of our extraordinary connectedness, our ability to inspire one another through authenticity, kindness, and courage, even without ever crossing paths. It requires immense courage to live your life as art and message. One must be comfortable with being lonely and misunderstood; upsetting the masses’ perceptions is not without consequence.
My hesitation toward being labelled as an artist stems from both the denial of my ability to inspire and a fear of being misunderstood, shunned, an outcast. An intense yearning to belong curses my artistry and the vulnerability it begets. To identify as artist is to open yourself up to the world, to play with life unguardedly. For years I have suppressed this inner calling in the name of self-preservation, distracted by the promises of conventionality and materialism. Yet, somehow, in the midst of my suppression, my artistry continues to seep through, easily detected by fellow seekers like Todd. My mismatched earrings, riddled greetings, and wide listening eyes betray my true nature, which patiently awaits my full-hearted acceptance.
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