a thought/theory about art.

did the free arts thing again on saturday. for those who dont know, free arts nyc brings volunteer mentors to rotating inner city community centers, on saturdays, to help disadvantaged kids make various art projects. obviously, it's a classy-as-hell organization, and i encourage anyone whose interest is piqued to visit the website, learn more and hopefully/maybe volunteer.

this time, we were at the good shepherd Nelson Mandela House on east 17th, a "Non-Secure Detention Program," which, among other services, provides counseling, supervision, and recreational activities for teens as they await Family Court outcomes (eg, boys who have run afoul of the law; girls who cannot live at home for one reason or another...). the theme was "poetry slam" and we helped teens make art that celebrated the written word.

anyhoo, i was partnered up with a fifteen year-old dude named david, who had actually come from an "NSD" in the bronx. i never asked and he never told me what his "crime" had been, but it was clear he had done something, as one of the supervisors from mandela kept on warning him (in all seriousness) not to paint or draw gang signs on his canvas.

david was very nice to me, and totally amenable and mostly enthusiastic about the painting and drawing he was there to do. and he seemed to have some real talent for sketching (he sketched a hand holding a rose--with droplets of blood dripping down the hand, which he told me signified the intersecting nature of love and hate in life) and free-styling, which he displayed for me throughout the day (his flow seemed classy, and it was somewhat amusing to hear him exaggerate the episodes of fornication, drug use and theft in his life, if not make them up entirely).

anyhoo part two, i came to a conclusion from seeing david's painting and sketch, and from listening to his rap, and then a poem he wrote that day. namely: great art is difficult to produce, but good art--art which gets into your heart a bit, makes ya feel something, is by nature easy to produce.

ie, if you give someone who feels any real emotions whatsoever a creative medium by which they may express themselves, i think it actually difficult for them to not produce something interesting and engaging. in fact, this is fairly guaranteed to hold true if you know some of the artist's personal backstory. seeing how they translate that backstory into art is inherently interesting.

simply put, bottom line: if you have a soul, it's impossible to not be intrigued or touched by a person's concentrated effort to express him or herself.

and to me, good art is simply art that evokes feeling. i would proffer that great art must do this, and also be memorable, and prolly also must echo something most everybody feels in one way or another, but that is a discussion for another time.

lastly, props to the florida gators for winning the tourney. joakim noah, son of yannick , was indeed impressivo.