The Invisible Artist

Post-Script: Creativity is a natural expression of the human psyche, something we in western culture tend to forget as we carefully organize our memes in distinctly separate boxes. For example, we tend to call "artist" a person of some educated pedigree who makes 51% or more of their income marketing their work, while as a culture we tend to ignore the nascent yearnings for creativity intrinsic to our youth, as education budgets get cut and parents and business owners alike wring their hands over the epidemic of graffiti-based vandalism in their communities.

I recently talked to a tattoo artist about his business, and he said many get into the industry because it's one of the few ways a person of artistic bent can monetize their creative expression into a readily-accessible client base. I believe both of these phenomena - graffiti and tattoos - are expressions of a generation eager for an outlet for their creative expression but who lack the support of their culture. As a society we've done well (until recently) in organizing our higher education as a factory to supply workers to Corporations, while simultaneously eschewing the tradition of Liberal Arts as education for the sake of education, and the result shows in a culture that does little to support the nascent artists amongst us, who continue to struggle, as they have in the past.

Typecast via Corona 4, photo via Lumix G5.