Make way for the creatives

We’ve had academia, now it’s time for the arts students to rise and shine (not that the arts aren’t academic), to fill the pages with creative freedom and all kinds of stuff that might make you question everything entirely. That’s what artists are good at. We scream into the void of the world with our paintings and ink and sculpture and every possible medium you could think of, because we have something to say, and we’ll make you listen whether you want to hear it or not.

There’s always been something about art that sticks its little claws in me and doesn’t let go, and I’ve never put my finger on it, but I know that without my creativity, I’m as boring as a plank of wood. When the bits of something click into place in your mind and it all just explodes out, you have no choice but to capture it now or risk losing that spark forever. I’m a firm believer that we don’t find art to make; art finds us and we’re simply the ones who must give it a physical form, whether that be visual, performance, literary, conceptual, or whatever else it demands to be. If we don’t grab the inspiration with both hands, it’ll find someone else to bring it to life.

I don’t know about anyone else, but in my opinion there’s one singular piece of art on the Hamilton campus that really sums up what it is to be a student here. The first time I stumbled across it, it hit me out of nowhere, took me completely by surprise, and it was the first time that artwork had made me stop and stare like that. Mostly because it was the last thing I was expecting when going to the bathroom, because on one of the floors in J block, someone let an artist loose in the bathroom. I opened the door to one of the stalls and burst out laughing at myself. Hopefully a lot of you know this painting, because there’s no proper way for me to describe its true magnificence; it’s a giant painting of a cat in an astronaut helmet, floating in a mess of colour that makes your eyes want to scream and praise the holy gods of creativity at the same time. I’ve never felt so delighted and understood before, since of course I want to go to the bathroom in between classes in a stall that has a giant cat staring at me. 10/10, no notes.

Art isn’t about making a pretty painting to hang on a wall, or a pretty song to play on the radio, or anything like that. It’s about shoving meaning into the face of even the people who don’t care enough to pay attention and planting your foot to do so. It’s about putting your art high up in the air, so it catches attention, demands it, and makes people listen to what you have to say through your medium. So even though we as artists like to doubt our work and try to edit it to perfection, I think we need to let go a little more and let the inspiration lead us through telling the story. There’s no such thing as perfection, and even if there was, a huge messy artwork that you can really delve into is so much better.

Go forth, mental artists. Make them hear you.