A Proposition for Life Art Part 3

By Jon Keppel

This relating of my experience with exploring the idea, theme and lifestyle of art as life is the third part in a three-part set of writings about this topic.  In the first part I described the historical thread in Western art that I followed to make this realization.  In the second I talked about people and themes that seem in my opinion to exhibit a positive and constructive formulation of this understanding that all life can be art.  In this third instance I want to focus in on how I have been understanding this conception and perhaps more importantly how I am practicing it in my everyday life.

Firstly, I have had the epiphany that just as with traditional art there are some basics or fundamentals involved.  It is important to me that I make sure at the outset to say here that I am simply describing my own subjective experience with this process and how I have come to know it in my own time and way.  The possibilities are of course as infinite as life itself and of course this speaks to the infinite and unique diversity of all human life.  I do want to say however that I feel morals, ethics and principals (or whatever right-thinking model appeals to you) are essential to this entire conception and practice just as in life itself (which after all this is an immense part).  I promote experimentation and pioneering but the sanctity of life is something that I feel must prevail on all accounts in order to keep the meaning of life in all its myriad forms intact.  Meaning is something that I refer to here as very much related to the miracle that poses the mind to correspond, with itself and that which surrounds it.

The basics or fundamentals in traditional art study include things like drawing from sight, learning about shapes and forms and shadow and so forth.  In life art I have seen that a few fundamentals also come to the fore regardless of how abstract or illuminated you want to get with your practice meaning the living of your life, and granted I understand that this opportunity may very well not be practice in the strictest sense of the word at all and instead be the one, true, perhaps only experience that we may ever have the opportunity to have. That said some of the fundamentals that have arisen for me include: good quality sleep, a healthy, flavorful diet that is right for you, physical exercise, water throughout the day, reading daily, socializing and meditation.  The last of those, meditation, harkens back to what I spoke of about the difference between formal and informal practice.  I learned this from Mingyur Rinpoche among others.  In means that both when you sit in silent contemplation and all of the rest of the time of your life is meditation.  

For my understanding I have begun to call this realization in light of art being life the artistic attitude.  The artistic attitude is one that we take on in light of an understanding that art is life and that everything we do is a meditation.  It gives us a formulation for how to think about the world and act rightly in it while always staying curious, inclusive, illuminated and illuminating.  A good point to make, that I have mentioned before but which is important to reiterate is that the connection made here between the art world and the everyday world is true but need not be engaged with in order to fully experience the full power of which I speak.  This means that you can believe that art is life or you can believe that life is simply life.  The term artistic attitude can be let go of for a term like consciousness.  The point is showing that there need not be a differentiation between the two.  The goal as always here to live a happy, healthy and fulfilling life.  

I simply have had a calling in life to be an artist.  To keep things straight in my head I have begun to call anything that results in an exhibition to be conventional art regardless of materials used.  In music this could be on a record or on a stage.  In theatre it would be the street or the stage.  In writing it would be the book and so forth.  Life art includes all of these instances but it also includes all of the other daily activities of one’s life.  Something that I noticed is that fine art practice in the conventional sense is almost in some ways similar to the formal practice of meditation where it is a kind of trained in experience and engagement with materials, concepts, feelings and a sense that has been cradled in the backdrop of the conception of the art world as coined by art philosopher Arthur Danto.  The exhibition is another concept that has been cradling what we think is art.

My interest has been to rethink art or perhaps more aptly stated, reveal something in art that came about as a discovery while trying to get at the now of the art of my time during my life.  Even with the caves of Lascaux that are when you think about it not that far different from the walls and structures of galleries and museums, there was much, much more to the story than what was arising on the walls.  The sanctity of a painting or sculpture will always stay with us as a people I feel in that they were some of the first and most intutive instantiations of technology and culture.  However regardless of how conventional art is brought forward with new materials like artificial intelligence, drones, data, robotics, video, sound and so forth an entirely new expanse of art is opening up which of course has always been around but simply was known as life itself.  Whether you call it life, art, life art, art as life, life as art, existence, being, presence the case that I have tried to lay out here and share is that we can be co-crafters, co-creators with what I espouse as the higher energies and powers of life to reestablish and reaffirm those morals, ethics and principals that I spoke of earlier.  We have the chance to be the art we seek.  The time is now.  Art is now.  We are.  

In this light then I want to communicate the ways in which I practice this understanding.  I happen to identify as a conventional artist, so I continue to paint and make music, to do art video and sound and work on conceptual pieces.  I do sculpture work and photography as well, all kinds of stuff really but literature and innovations of that kind are for another kind of specified writing.  In regards my life art then or for those that prefer life in general I have been working with, in addition to the fundamentals that I mentioned a rotating practice with the following: visualization, meditation, mindfulness, prayer, affirmations, manifesting and  journaling to help me bring into being what I want my life to be like.  I have used these methods to devise life as art in the form of an exploration of the information sciences as a way to live my life and earn money and be able to live a life with fun and excitement that will fulfill me.  I have started cooking, gardening, organizing and more as ways to expand my experience of life.  Of course, this type of variation is going to be different for everyone.  I am not saying anything different from what already is.  The only thing that I can offer is a pointer, a kind of awareness that we, each, are always making, creating, co-creating, crafting and co-crafting the world in which we live in the form of our own personal lives.  The tools that I have been developing starting with the conception that art can be the craft of life, the artistic attitude and various instances of how this understanding has been brought forth in my own life is just a beginning of a limitless adventure that can truly help us I feel to love ourselves rightly, create lives of robust success and vitality and also give us a way of understanding life in all its complexities and formulations.  I hope you see the awesome power you have within you   This is life.  This is art.  This is us.  There is no them.  Thank you.