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| Art by Jean-Francois Painchaud aka SuperPhazed |
I originally posted this on Facebook February 22, 2020. I came across it again when I was looking for something else I had written. I'm posting it here because it's a good reminder to myself to create and why I have created in the past.
"Thank you for the tragedy. I needed it for my art."
Kurt Cobain
I haven't been recording my dreams as religiously as I had before. Certain fragments linger and things in the outer world trigger a memory of a fragment of remembered dream. This is one of those times. The above quote triggered a memory of a fragment from last week or so.
In the dream it felt almost like I was in a game. You were presented with something but you had to add some sort of body fluid with it and it would turn into something new and valuable. It reminded me of Minecraft and my daughter saying she needed to bring certain elements together to create a new tool.
I observed something fall to the floor near this woman who I identified as being...well...God. I observed her bring tears from her eyes to drop onto the item and it transformed it into something new and powerful. It became a new powerful tool she could add to her collection.
I understood this is what I do everytime I take the pain, anger and disappointment I feel and turn it into art or a new lesson, I am transforming it into something new and powerful. Every new lesson is a new tool for my chest that helps me move forward.
I am just as capable of making art from love and happiness, but it is the difficult experiences that have the potential to make us fall into a dark, dense downward spiral. By creating something new with whatever shit lands at our feet, it lifts us by allowing us to express our difficult emotions while simultaneously creating something new. That something new is then infused with our emotions that others are able to feel.
You can feel the difference between art that comes from a place of shallowness and art that is made from what is deep within us and is an outward expression of it. The person who comes in contact with our depths is moved by it, especially when the listener or viewer can relate and it strikes an emotional chord within them.
Kurt Cobain was successful in doing this even when his words were nonsense. The music was infused with all of what he felt inside but had no other accurate way to express it.
Oktobre Taylor