“Let us celebrate in the stupidity of our endurance.”
The truth is, we aren't going to stop. Even though the odds have been stacked against us since day one.
For starters, the clergy at Shit Art Club is made up of artists and writers. We are holy, sacred and spiritual - yet brazenly irreverent.
We know that any success and celebration of our work will most likely come after we’re dead. Partly because we are ahead of the times — but mostly because when you’re dead, you're not getting drunk, making a mess, building debt, or pissing off the world in some other way.
The artist isn't dealt a hand much different anyone else. We just know how to bluff and call everybody else’s. We know we aren’t allowed to live the way we do, but we still go all in and ask the dealer to hit us anyway. Sometimes we win big, mostly we loose, but at the end of the day the artist knows that we are all sitting at the same table playing the same game. We understand that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission, so we act before asking when it feels right. We also know that just because we ask to be forgiven, doesn't mean we will be, which is why most of the time we don’t loose sleep over ruffling a few feathers. This is probably the reason why many people think we are narcissists, selfish, egomaniacs, out of touch, lazy, stupid, or clinically insane.
From our perspective, we think its crazier and more narcissistic to try and tell someone else how to live their life. We also feel that the only thing anyone really “should” do is respect and love each other. We have been told that an artist probably develops that perspective because he or she is a narcissistic, selfish egomaniac who is out of touch, lazy, stupid and criminally insane. It could be true, but that is neither here nor there. The artist isn’t defined by an external truth. The artist is defined by their external creations that come from what is within them. Once an idea manifests as art - it becomes real, factual and true. The artist creates truth.
There is a great power possessed by artists. Most people don’t understand it, and most of those who do, fear it. For this reason, we are labeled are lesser than all until someone decides that we should be elevated; accepted. Then we are geniuses, vanguards and visionaries.
The same people who whore out their taste to accept and “understand" the popular genius and rebelliousness of icons or iconoclasts, are the ones who are quick to dismiss the work, spirit, vision and ideas of young or emerging artists as derivative.
Until we get kidnapped and held hostage by those fancy fucks, we’ll keep on living on our subterranean perch. Flying underground – ripping through Skid Row and the streets of Venice or holed up in our concrete box; anchored beneath a seedy old hotel and former bathhouse. We landed in this space — once the notorious home for Skid Row’s clandestine encounters — then built a nest inside as strong as a fortress. Weaponized with our creativity, fearlessness, and wild imaginations — we will defend our creations until they hatch; then foster each and every one until it can fend for itself.
Being an active artist is a lot of work, but it is rewarding. Sometimes, even after completing the smallest work – a sketch, painting, drawing, poem, song or even a sentence – the artist is rewarded with a feeling of divinity. Only the artist can get close to feeling what it’s like to be one of the gods. By making something out of nothing – the artists’ work, though it may not be congruent, has a similarity with any scripture’s creation story. While all artists are not gods, the converse must be true. All gods must be artists. Despite all divinity, the creative path an artist walks can often get lonesome.
During a period of a wildly animated self-immolation, I stopped and had to ask myself, “what company do you choose to keep?”
I was hung up on it for a few days. The I realized: I surround myself by the creatives who continue - no matter what. The types who fly by feeling. The types who will bet their last dollar on the horse with the lowest odds — because they know that even though numbers don’t lie, numbers can’t account for the quality of spirit, inspiration, imagination and desire. What would you choose to propel you through life? Will you fill your tank with a cognitive fuel? Watered down wth calculated risk? Why put your soul in the driver’s seat trying to accelerate wth your thoughts?
The artist tops their tank with a fiery explosive mix of dreams, heart and soul - and lets their unlicensed brain navigate while Jesus takes the wheel. That is me. I am on a trip around the sun traveling too fast for Satan, propelled by desires, navigated by thought and being chauffeured by some intangible thing that I have invested whatever faith I have into.
I am flowing swiftly through the rapids of the stream of consciousness — looking forward to my eventual arrival at the mellow delta — but not without making sure ride every torrent and twist on the way.
Until they find a way to make me grow up and shut up, I’ll keep rambling rough cuts from Neverland.
xoxo,
— Peter Pan