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The New World Around The Corner

Artists often move away from their homes in a journey towards self awareness and artistic inspiration. Famously they are rather long voyages such as Picasso, Baldwin, Chopin, Chagall and countless others leaving their languages and countries behind for Paris. I have often spoken about the benefits of being a foreigner for creativity and perspective, as I was lucky enough to spend a year in Paris. There is however a different type of emigration which is more like stepping across time and space into a universe which is just next door. Thoreau did this in Walden, which was only miles away from his childhood home in Concord. Even though the distance was short, the mental and spiritual distance traversed was farther than most of us experience in cross continental travel. It was a discovery of the real environment, undisturbed by politics and obligation. It was important that it was close, as the struggles remained a choice rather than a necessity. Thoreau could have always gone home for dinner or to do the laundry.

Last night I finally saw the excellent documentary of Jean Michel Basquiat called Radiant Child. I have been fascinated, and admiring of Basquiat for a long time, but mostly in the 15 years I have lived in New York. His vision is the kind of educated, improvisational, physcologically complex work with childlike freedom of movement and expression that I like the most. It is like Miles and Ornette in two bold dimensions. What I realized from the film last night was that Basquiat also had a Thoreauvian expedition himself. For Basquiat it was from a comfortable Brooklyn Heights townhouse across the bridge just 2 miles away to the parks, streets and nightclubs of lower Manhattan, where he first struggled to live as a free agent of expression; without money, support or paycheck. Instead he lived off the land of a natural urban human habitat. His work encompassed what it meant to be alive and aware, even for those short years he lived. In this way Basquiat was as much a naturist as a poet in the woods. His subjects were us humans. While he could have seen humanity in Brooklyn, he needed to make that short journey in order to free himself to see with fresh perspective, while always carrying with him the psychological baggage of his childhood. This to me seems like a move that we should all make at one point in life.

Tags: Basquiat, art, pop, thoreau

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Comment by cecil brown on June 16, 2011 at 12:12pm: good stuff

Comment by Matthew Putman on December 13, 2010 at 7:36am: Thank you Georgette, Tray and Karen. I really appreciate your responses.

Comment by Georgette Jones on December 13, 2010 at 12:12am: My move to my current city two years ago was a short one - just 50 miles. During the moving process, I expected my art to change - and it has- even amidst countless challenges.

Greater than these challenges has been the discovery that I'm simply not a "skyscraper person," but more comfortable and creative among nature, as I gradually begin to incorporate it into my work.

Thank you for the interesting blog post. I agree that moving often does provide the fresh prespective that is so vital to an artist. I expect one more major move in my lifetime.

Comment by Tray Patterson on December 11, 2010 at 5:22am: I agree.... perspectives open when moves are made! Regardless of what those moves are - thanks for the article.