Art/ist/ry
Before issuing a treatise on art, I might entertain the question, am I an artist? On one hand, this question begs the Cartesian assertion about what is demanded to ascertain “I,” and where I [is] located. On the other hand, the question heaves its optimistic lasso into the ethereal discourse of “art,” hoping to apprehend something to brand/ish. Some cultures have no word(s) for “artist,” and, indeed, the very concepts of autonomy and art necessitate particular social girding. To be an artist, one must apparently belong to a culture in which art is conceptualized and in which oneself is situated. In accepting these terms, the simplicity of Cartesian autonomy is recanted, and elusive matter of art has yet to be addressed. Here is the cusp of in/sensibility, the threshold of re-cognition. Here I create what might be called art; here, I AM. Art is the tincture of reason with pensive flirtation, the invocation of proscription, un-certainty, and sublimity. Ultimately, my art—if there is such a thing—is a conceptual chapel in which I explore God and make discursive things as a dialogic engagement of possibility. The products that emerge are emblematic of the autonomous self. They are what they are.
- John Derby