Art and the artist

I saw a special about James Taylor recently on PBS -- oh, actually, just remembered, it was on the flight to Austria for my son's wedding. In any case, it was an interview with him interspersed with some music.

Pretty interesting overall but one line of questioning struck me.

The interviewer was asking about the songs he wrote in the Sweet Baby James period -- the ones that were somewhat melancholy. The interviewer was asking JT about what those songs meant or might mean or might indicate about JT's life at the time.

JT basically responded to the effect that music and the life are different things. He seemed to be saying that he could write things that may or may not represent how he was actually feeling at the time. In other words, the art and the artist are different things.

Of course, some artists can create works of art that represent something they are feeling or going through in their lives but it is not a requirement. Seems to me the real professional would be capable of producing art that communicates any emotion or response or idea whether or not it represents what he/she feels.

Hopefully, artists select subjects and emotions which uplift or create positive change rather than encouraging degradation but perhaps that's just a personal preference.

One interesting point is that some research carried out by L. Ron Hubbard in the early 1950's into the wavelengths of life energy covered the relationship between aesthetics and life -- and a mechanism behind the tendency for aesthetics and life to become confused. (See the book Scientology 8-80.)

It was fascinating to see that underlying mechanism played out so clearly. This lead to the recognition that it is pretty common -- for me too, of course -- to confuse the art with the artist when in fact they are quite different. The artist is the creator, the art the created.

The simple fact is that works of art (the created) have properties as an energy that tend to become confused with the energy of life (the creator). The details are in the book reference above.