Art as Manifestation of a Struggle

Art has garnered so many definitions in the past and each artist has his or her own meaning which is in most cases, the very definition to live by. In my short years of living as an artist, transitioning from a full time writer to a full time artist, I have seen and met different types of artists along the way and I have realized that the most comfortable artist in life can’t create an artwork to save his or her life when it calls for it.

When an artist has tasted hunger that cannot be satiated there is a struggle that blooms within that artist and in that bloom is also the birth of creativity. Hunger and struggle are the key factors that transcend the comfortable and the mediocre.

SPOLARIVM by JUAN LUNA
Won the gold medal in Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes held in
Madrid back in the 1884

Juan Luna may be an Illustrado, a Filipino aristocrat, but his struggle surpasses the material kind. He, among others like Jose Rizal, struggled and sacrificed their lives for a country that is not united in identity and wished that the suffering of the common Filipino will be lifted. That others may be treated with respect and equality, provided with education and human rights.

I was just in Paete almost a month ago and I went to a gallery there. The gallery that was owned by a cousin of my maestro, he spoke to me of the local art and how the San Cristobal painting in their church was mutilated by a person I shall not name, not for now. At that time, they were holding a painting workshop and a child was painting in a corner. A woman exclaimed that the child will be a great painter one day because his parents have everything, that money is everything.

I disagreed and told her most artists that have succeeded greatly were poor. She held her ground that money will make an artist great.

Thinking that money is everything is poison to the mind. We have been lied to by society to think that money will bring us success, greatness, and happiness. It is a lie so terrible that now it eats at the core of the people and is in fact the mentality that is destroying the planet and igniting war.

Drying out the wood oil in the sun

The owner of the gallery asked me to make them a guestbook and in a few days now I shall be delivering it. This is just part of my struggle, to make ends meet as I sell books and accept commissions. I have relinquished accepting wood projects even though they pay well because I have to choose if I just want to work as a person who does wood or try to live off my artworks. Despite not earning a lot, I contented that I am comfortable in this kind of lifestyle, although I may not be able to do a lot of things that requires money, I don't feel like I'm missing out.

Brené Brown said that vulnerability is the birthplace of creativity, that artists are often those who have laid down the armor and embraced the struggle and vulnerability that humans are always visited with. That artists can empathize through their works of art. It is the response to vulnerability, its manifestation.

My mentor, Jose Tence Ruiz mentioned to me once "It's easy to be a good artist, but you'll never be great if you don't become a part of a struggle in the social consciousness."

What does this say to the artists of today? Who are hungry, who toiled and struggled, and those who lived in the comfortable home never visited by famine?

Should there be a battle, the hungrier, always wins.