No. Muzak isn’t Mozart

From my groundbreaking book, An Artist Empowered:

The Answer in the broadest brushstroke is this: It is all art. To consider the answer properly, one must first ask, what is an artist?

The creation is the extension of its creator. The true artist is the manifestation of the soul merging with consciousness. The art that concerns us here is art from the soul. Once the soul is found, the form follows—painting, music, dance, literature, and so on. Isn’t all art from the soul? No. Muzak isn’t Mozart. Let me tell you about the piano man.

DEBUSSY IN THE AFTERNOON

I was living in San Francisco at the time. It was in the early afternoon when a superb artist, several of his patrons, and I, were gathered in a large three-story stone mansion in the Cow Hollow district that overlooked the Marina. I looked around and saw that the entire first floor that had once supported many walls and rooms had been gutted to make space for an imposing ballroom. In the dimly lit inner sanctum, there were some thirty pianos, each covered with a soft white sheet. Our host, a wealthy piano collector, told us various virtuosi and composers had owned these pianos. He asked us if we would like to hear a piece. Yeses and nods. 

After carefully removing the cover draped over a grand piano, he ran several fingers along the mirror-like luster of the wood. As he sat down, our host mentioned that this fine instrument had belonged to Arthur Rubenstein and that Vladimir Horowitz and Igor Stravinsky had once owned the pianos to his right. The piano man began playing from memory. 

ACCURACY WITH VIRTUOSITY

Suddenly, Debussy’s clair de Lune swept up all around the piano mausoleum. After about five minutes, the piece was finished and the air stopped vibrating. We applauded. There was no doubt our host had classical concert ability. Yet there was something missing from the performance of the otherwise haunting melody. While the piano man demonstrated remarkable technical proficiency, the music had been strangely sterile. Our pianist had played the work as the notes ticked off unerringly by rote inside his head. It was accuracy without virtuosity, without passion, like hearing a detailed description of two people making love in clinical terms. 

To know and appreciate the difference between technique and spirit makes for elevated awareness. Otherwise, you are stuck in that eternal vanilla waiting room with Muzak for company. Each original artwork contains the soul of its creator; that is why the connoisseur wants to own original art; the life force that resides within the work is undeniable. From this understanding, you can enrich your ability to discern art from advertising, soulful from commercial, good from bad, and reality from pretension. 

Discern not in rhetoric as in proclaiming this is better than that, but in awareness that this is this and that is that. Each true artwork enters the world alone and alive—as do we all.

CONNECTING ON A DEEPER INTUITIVE LEVEL

My art-making is based on the physical flow of spontaneous intuition, which involves a remarkable journey. Impulses of energy and information surge down my arm and, through improvisation, I compose visual jazz with line and color. If the art-making is magic, then the art is magic. 

What does my painting Cool Cat Jazz reveal to you? There is no right or wrong answer. Trust your feelings, not the opinion of others, including art critics and so-called experts. Remember, if you see it, then it’s there. Enjoy. Click on the painting for more details. 

To get a better feel for the scope and range of my art, please visit my collection of original Fine Art prints: each signed print features museum-quality materials, permanent pigment inks, plus acid-free matting that I attach to the artwork using conservation best practices. 

To further connect with you, I share more of the inner workings and depth of my art and exclusive personal insights in my newsletter. Subscribe below and receive a free valuable gift: Ten Tips for Building Self-Confidence.