What is Art?

Art is a re-creation of life. It parallels life. It is a mirror for humanity. The song, book, language, word, dance, drama, sculpture, poem, painting are all brothers and sisters and all analogies of life. When someone views art, or practices it, they become involved in communication; receiving or creating ideas of subject or element arrangement as well as ideas of who we were, are or should be. Involvement in art immerses us in thoughts of unity-disunity, harmony-disharmony, balance-imbalance, and humanity as chaotic, overly structured, or joyously harmonized in diversified unity.

Shakespeare said the world is a stage. He directed, gave freedom to, and controlled his characters, the players. The writer directs the word; the musician, the note; the dancer, the step; the painter, the stroke. Each artist struggles at some level to bring together and unify the complexity of his/her creative expression without losing the importance of diversity. Too much unity through sameness, we have monotony. Too much diversity, we have chaos. To express the maximum complexity of thought and feeling, maintain diversity, yet simplicity, and end with unity is not only the goal of every artist, but the goal of every citizen of life and of this world.

As we leave the stage and enter the world, and the writer puts down his pen, the musician her instrument, the painter, his brush, we must remember, we then become the true players, the real words, the living colors, and if we choose, to be directed, written and re-written, moved, set free, understood, disciplined and loved, by the artist who started it all.

Stan Miller

The World of Joy and Sorrow...

There once was a world where no one ever suffered.

No thirst or hunger, no hatred or war, no pain or loneliness.

No hot or cold, no restless or tired, no fearful or proud.

Everyone was equal.   Every need was met.   No unpleasantness was known.

Everyone was happy in the world of no suffering, but they didn't know it.

For no one smiled because no one had ever frowned.

No one had even moved for all their needs were right before them.

In this world, no one knew if they were alive, for they had never known death.

One day a person arrived from another world.  

For the very first time, since anyone could recall, people started to move.

...to this stranger from another world, they moved, to listen and see.

Somehow, mysteriously, they sensed that this person could smile.

As they watched, in time, this person would cry, then laugh, then seem to be sad.

So very, truly alive he seemed to be, yet they didn't know for sure.

For the people of no suffering had never known this behavior.

One day this person proclaimed that he was returning to his world.

"May we go with you?" spoke someone from the many who had gathered.

"In my world there is life and death, right and wrong, night and day, good and bad.

In my world there is war and peace, togetherness and loneliness, hunger and thirst.

In my world there is great joy and great sorrow and suffering,

And one day all will die."   And then he vanished from their sight.

Left behind, floating just above the ground, in the air,

was an open door, with stairs going upward into the sky.

Although the citizens of this world of no suffering,

did not fully understand the strangeness of this visitor,

they longed for his return

and many entered the door with the stairs that went into the sky.

And above the door that many entered, were the words,

"The Way to the World of Joy and Sorrow".

by Stan Miller