We artists are funny specimens of humanity. We are "irony." In all our (I am being generous here with the use of "our," as I probably don't fit this stereotype) strivings to be unique, we become typical, usual in our uniqueness, common in our uncommonness.
[I interrupt myself a moment to interject a real "ponderance" that parents have undoubtedly pondered since time's beginning...or rather since the beginning of doors. Why can children not seem to close them quietly? Why must they be slammed, no matter the amount of pleading and shushing to shut them properly? This slice of reality brought to you in part by my door-slamming children.]
But back to artists and conformity masquerading as non-conformity. I looked at a picture of a group of artists and was struck by the oddly-red hair, the various Flat Caps (or Scally Caps or Salmon Hats or Smack Hats or whichever other name you should choose of the approximately 30 options for this type of cap), the poodle with similarly frizzy-fur-haired owner, and realized something. I didn't need to be told what profession these colorful (sometimes literally) aberrations belonged to. They were artists, naturally. Perhaps, then, an artist would do well to achieve uniqueness-success by being distinctly and decidedly normal...if the end-goal is simply the high rank of uniqueness, that is.
For me, the end goal is not uniqueness. Maybe I am unique and maybe I am yawningly mass-produced humanity. All I know is that I do what I do because I am who I am in Christ. If I'm a little odd or off, that is just the God-created me. If I'm not...well, that is just another part of me...the comfortingly normal part.
And that's all the musings and puzzlings I have about we artists...at this moment in time, while I await another slamming door, alerting me to hungry children ready for their dinner.
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