Today I got to interview two more amazing artists for my interactive documentary project and it was just about the coolest thing ever to watch Mikey Welsh paint, and see the easy smile spread across Steve Budington’s face as he read this Leo Steinburg quote aloud:
"A work of art does not come like a penny postcard with its value stamped upon it; for all its objectives, it comes primarily as a challenge to the life of the imagination, and ‘correct’ ways of thinking or feeling about it simply do not exist. The grooves in which thought and feelings will eventually run have to be excavated before anything but bewilderment and resentment is felt at all."
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Pretty damn awesome. When I drove away from Welsh’s studio, my head was bursting with ideas and I had the music blaring.
I’ve been doing that lately: cranking up the volume and letting the music take over. It’s something I never, ever in a million years would have done even two years ago. I never really had a thing for music: never let it in; never let it move me.
I’m not sure why, except I grew up in an ultra quiet house with only classical and the unquestioned opinion that all other music was somehow not as....what?
It is so crazy to unpack my outmoded perceptions. Being in grad school is doing that: putting me in the boxing ring with my perceptions and letting the old me and the new me duke it out. It gets messy sometimes.
But the music thing has just been awesome.
It's also something I’ve found as an thread that connects many of the artist’s stories. Music is the lingua franca of the creative mind in motion, maybe. I’m getting that now; I’m feeling it wholly. I'm letting myself slip into good tunes in a way that I never entirely have, loosing myself for a few seconds, singing at the top of my lungs and grinning with the windows rolled down and the cold spring air rushing in; or running hard to a good song on the treadmill.
I'm curious what your experience with music is. And I also want to know: what music are you loving right now? I want to branch out and explore. I need some good tunes to get me through the end of the semester!