epiphanies, and art

I had an epiphany today, while washing walls in my school's teaching center, beside the worship arts department. i tend to have epiphanies in the most random places... mostly in the shower.

epihpany, in a holistic sense, is finally seeing how the small parts of some insight relate to the whole. in this case, the epiphany relates to art (i'm sure the definition has much more depth. thus is life. look it up).

the epiphany happened while i was listening to Keane, and the lyrics reminded me of an art project i finished, last month, filled with random lyrics that i didn't write. i don't feel like the project captured the heart of what i am, because most of the styles i used were not unique to me. they were more styles of books, and authors, that i like. I'll try and explain more.

the last year of my life has been my renaissance. I've spent a lot of time trying to learn about art, and trying to figure out who i am. I've spent a lot of time thinking about art, theorizing, brainstorming, and assuming trying to get a grasp of what art is, at the heart. though, on a side note, i spent a lot of the year feeling very lost.

So, i realized today that my art is not my own yet. if there is a line between inspiration, and imitation i have crossed it many times. there are some artists that are inspired by works of art, so they try and adapt a bit of the style to their own art. then there are artists who flat out copy the exact style, and make art that is a lesser version of a greater artist's turmoil. well, yeah, i feel like I've been too much like the latter in the past 3 months.

I've spent a lot of time using artistic methods like lower casing all my letters. which, as any blogger would know, is not intentional. its something that comes as a result of typing into a small letter box with little or no formatting. this is not my style when i write by hand. its just not me, so why should it be part of why i do my art?

this is a new chapter for me, i think. trying to make my own style of writing, rather than trying to make cheap stylistic copies of other writers. what my own style looks like, i don't know. the nature of an art piece is that it is never fully explained. and the heart of the artist is to never stay the same, but to stay in a process of change. and, to keep re-fining the style with which they create.

I think, what life most reminds me of is art. art is something which is created, for us to breathe the words back to ourselves, replay the images, in wonder and ecstasy.

And, i think that the world of art is drawn with lines to divide profound concepts. if there are connections to be made in art, there must be separate things to connect. there are lines between inspiration, integration, pain, joy... and we have to recognize how these things work, separately, if we are to know how they work together.

One of the elements of art is to make connections, to tie things together. another thing about art, I've realized, is that it tries to reveal beautiful things to those who can't recognize them. and, I've been trying to figure out how to do that for quite a while now.

... and, I'm still trying.

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...nothing i say makes sense to me,
something i can't fix.
the lights not bright enough, so I'm
stuck trying to make sense of the dark.
I'm trying to do something i don't know how to do,
never sure what I'm supposed to find...