Society of Strangers

Manners (for a child of 1918):

- Be sure to remember to always speak to everyone you meet
- Always offer everyone a ride
- Answer nicely when you are spoken to.

I've been getting a lot of calls from people who aren't there. Four, five, seven, nine times a day the phone rings, I answer it, and there is silence. I presume they are wrong numbers. I presume they are broken telemarketing machines. I presume they are ghosts on the line.

When I was little, I was told to go through with wrong numbers, to apologize to those on the end of the phone. Similarly, if a wrong number called me, I was to ask the number they meant to call and confirm that it was not mine. Never in any case was I to give out my own information, even my own name. If I got a call that hung up, a call with no voice and no person, I was to assume someone was checking the house, attempting to burgle it. In short, I was to call the police.

Now I think it's kind of rude if someone stays on the line long enough to tell me they got the number wrong.

We as a culture have fallen into the habit of privacy. Maybe it comes from city living; perhaps to stop claustrophobia we must pretend we are the only people on the street. I can't remember the last time a stranger said "hello" to me; I was astounded when, a week ago, a child stopped and said "excuse me, Ma'am" after darting in front of me. I work very hard to never make eye contact, and to look away quickly if someone sees my pupils. It's a safety precaution, mostly; I've lived in a lot of big, dangerous cities, and I've been warned that engagement invites attack. I know that the last time I saw a kid commit blatant vandalism, I didn't say anything. His father would have yelled at me for intruding, and the crowd would have been on his side.

I have a friend named Diggs, who's from rural Tennessee. He tips his hat to everyone on the street. He conducts random polls to find everyone's favorite Bond movie. He always learns the waitress's life story. A lot of people think he's rude, crass . . . even offensive. But the world sure seems more homey when he's around.

Definition

I think I have come to an understanding of my hatred toward Thomas Kinkade, the so-called "painter of light." It's not that I think his pictures are hokey, although I do. It's not that I hate the mentality of forced nostalgia for things that never were, (damn you and your Christmas, Charles Dickens). It's not even that I'm offended by the way Kinkade blatantly steals the terminology used to define the groundbreaking work of the French Impressionists. No; this goes much further than that. It cuts at the deep and abiding question of what defines art.

I put it to you that art is defined by its creation. That is, art is something (whether physical or intangible) created by an artist (in the case of found art, the "creation" occurs at its discovery, not its making), which uniquely expresses an emotion, provokes thought, or supplies beauty. "Unique" is an integral part of that definition, as otherwise the art is not being created -- it is being copied. The Mona Lisa is art, but a poster of the Mona Lisa is not art; it is a repilca of a piece of art. By the same token, if I sculpt a teacup and then make three identical teacups to sell, only the first is a piece of art. (Of course, if I made them as a set, then they would all be art - they would simply all be one piece of art.)

(With performance art this obviously gets a bit more complicated - is a play still art the fiftieth time it's performed? It does change from night to night - there's a certain amount of interaction between performer and audience - but for the most part it is simply repetition. The play itself remains art, but the performance is only art the first time it happens, if even then. [I've seen some bad performances.] This is why I tend to go opening night, even though I realize the play will run more smoothly later in the run.)

Thomas Kinkade does not try to create something unique; Thomas Kindade tries to create the same thing with every canvas. I'm not just talking about the fact that you, I, and ten thousand other people can own the same painting of lighthouse number three; I'm talking about the fact that there's no real distiction between lighthouse number three and stone bridge number ten. The work never progresses; it never grows more complex. It never tries a new emotion, or even a new color palette. The brush style is stagnant; an insight is never offered into the subject matter. Ordinarily, when one views a series of works by an artist - Van Gogh's sunflowers, for example - one gets the sense that he's attempting to delve, attempting to understand, attempting to master before he moves on. Kindade is never going to explore, Kinkade is never going to learn, and Kinkade is certainly never going to move on.

It just wouldn't be profitable.

Which is fine; there's nothing wrong with making a living by your work.

But the man has the gall to call himself an artist.