When you hear the word "art," what comes to mind?
Music? What kind of music? Rap, classical, pop, opera?
Now, what comes to mind when you hear "the arts?"
Long-dead composers and music written for deceased kings or queens? Or, oil-on-canvas pieces hanging in a museum you will never see and never understand?
What qualifies as good art?
I've recently had this conversation with several friends - prompted, partly, by this year's Riverbend lineup.
It's the best lineup of artists in years, some folks declared. Others said it's one of the festival's weakest.
In art, as in life, it's all about perception.
It seems to be human nature to determine that if something isn't important to us, it's not important at all. Or it does not qualify as art. Using the Riverbend example, again, if you've never heard of bands Cage the Elephant, The War and Treaty or Los Amigos Invisibles, you assign them no value. As I've said many times before, if your favorite act is on the lineup, it's the best ever. If not, it's the worst. This holds for any festival anywhere.
Photo by David McClister / The husband-wife team Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Blount-Trotter make up The War and Treaty, performing this summer at Riverbend.Which brings us back to the question: What is art?
There is no accepted universal definition of art - which is itself subjective in nature - so the idea of "the arts" can be intimidating for some, and nothing short of voodoo or a money grab in the minds of others.
Not only is art hard to define, it might be harder still to quantify or place a value on.
The pandemic financially impacted live music as hard as any industry out there over the last two years, with venues and festivals being shut down. Entire tours were canceled. Both artists and fans told me that not being able to have those in-person experiences of sharing live music was soul crushing, as well. I can't tell you how many artists have told me things like, "I need to paint" or "I need to write and sing my songs." Fans, too, can often be heard saying how much they need to have art in their lives.
It's my hope, as someone who is still learning to appreciate art that I don't understand, that the last two years have opened eyes to realizing how important being able to communicate and share with others is, and art is a great way to do just that. We can learn a lot about someone else by just trying to understand or at least appreciate their art. Very often, the basic messages or meanings are not too dissimilar.