Art Rat Tra Tar Atr Rta

I'm a pretentious artist.

What is art? Is this bowl of fruit on my kitchen counter art? Is it only art when someone paints it or photographs it? Is a five-year-old's slapdash rendering of this bowl of fruit worth any less on the art scale than mine?

"Oh, you don't get it simply because you're uncultured. This toilet bowl that I've glued cat memes to is abstract. Don't you get it? This is art."

Does art have to have a purpose? 

When Rivera spake the fateful title of this post after being accused of willful propagandizing in the Rockefeller mural in New York City, he uttered an eternal truth that also highlighted the quandary of prophet versus poet. When does the prophet's preaching becoming singing? When does the artist's work advertise? It is an onerous question, related to the dying ars gratia artis argument immortalized by the Romans and the Greeks. More and more in today's society, art for art's sake is no longer seen as valid or worthy. Art has to do something. It has to advertise. Say something. Call to action. Art has to sell. 

I am an artist. I cannot deny anymore my own conflicting and insular feelings of superiority I have towards others' art. I have "high" standards, to say the least. It takes a lot to impress me with your artistic ability. I tend to dismiss others' efforts as juvenile or specious in value simply based on aesthetic value. I had never really considered messages too much in evaluating art, which, according to many, I have been getting completely wrong.

What has my own purpose been in my own art career? When I gaze back upon my own artistic career, I really can't say that I had much of a purpose in my art.

I just did it.

I just did it because it felt good and because I wanted to. I had no ulterior, all-encompassing, global purpose.

I don't know. It looked pretty.

I don't have an answer to what art is. Perhaps I never will.

I remember reading a quote somewhere along of the lines of "it is the job of an artist to fail." Perhaps that what it meant.