The System

The system of exhibiting art is broken and I don't know how to fix it. I can't get to the people that exhibit emerging artists. I can't get anyone to look at my work and I'm frustrated and angry. I've tried the traditional systems and realized that the art world has changed. It declared that I need to become a part of greed and profit, it asked that I become apart of its manifesto.

Artists, philosophers, scientist and inventors all over the world are packing it in and giving up or rejecting the current system that prevents them from making an positive contribution to human existence. We are not ego driven individuals given to fame and fortune but people who believe that our world needs consolation and that consolation can be salved with beauty.

I want to know how someone like Damien Hirst found hedge funds to support his work how Tracey Emin got her work exhibited in the Tate Modern. Do these artist produce beauty? I honestly don't think so. Consolation does not come from reproducing the ugliness of our current world. I see no redemption in their works only sensationalism.

Try as they may, art collectives, galleries and arts centers, are failing also. They have become institutions of socialization and self promotion but very few of their audiences are really looking at or buying art. We've lost our way folks.

We have reduced art education to a level of non-existence and wonder why our children can't cut it in school and life.

We consume everything in our lives quickly, and through it all we feel something is missing. Many of us avoid being still and quite because dissatisfaction "rears its ugly head" and we must find something quickly to stifle it. That feeling is a wake up call, pay attention, this isn't working. We have turned our backs on beauty.

When we fall in love, when someone we love dies, when we become ill, or our children are born, then we pay attention. Unfortunately it's only during theses times our lives we are forced to reflect on our existence. These momentous occasions take us to the plane where beauty resides, and on that plane we find contemplation and redemption and a path back to what really matters to us.

I know of many people who have expressed disdain and concern about the world we live in and yet their voices are barely heard. I wonder why we are silenced yet I suspect that our cries for change are ignored because human kind can't hear their own souls cry in the noise that we live in.

I have always believed that beauty is a way to find our way back home. Always, beauty has helped me through some very trying times. It has given me a way to heal a broken heart in a world that seemly doesn't care. Beauty has given me the strength and courage to carry on. Beauty has taught me to listen and strangely enough its taught me compassion and empathy.

How does one person get this message to a world that rejects the notion that beauty has value? I don't know but to give up seems senseless. The world is greatly troubled and our sources of real consolation are disappearing.

I hear people say what they are consuming gives no satisfaction. Please, quietly view, listen, read, and produce something beautiful it's our way back home.