The Artist's Job [Behind The Glass Podcast with Charlotte Eriksson]

Behind The Glass with Charlotte Eriksson

The craftsmen make it seem so simple. The writer presents his words as if they came as natural as a breath. I put my headphones on and the songs with the sounds and atmospheric layers spread wide as if it just happened out of natural euphoria in the flick of a second and this is the danger with art. The art is not the art-form itself, but the way the artist makes something complicated feel uncomplicated; something messy feel intact; something weak feel beautiful. I am 26 and I am learning what it means to be an artist, for I am not an artist, because it takes life and a life lived well, to the limit, to see the patterns in storms, but I am 26 and I am learning. I am learning shame and solitude, forgiveness and goodbyes. I’m learning persistence and the closing of doors, the way the seasons come and go as I keep walking on these roads, back and forth, to find myself in new time zones, new arms with new phrases and new goals. And it hurts to become, hurts to find out about the poverty and gaps, the widow and the leavers. It hurts to accept that it hurts and it hurts to learn how easy it is for people to not need other people. Or how easy it is to need other people but that you can never build a home in someone’s arms because they will let go one day, and you must build your own. That is the act of the arts. It is not the task of writing about the simple ride from bus to town, but the ride that was not so simple, not so joyful, but to make it feel okay anyway. Because life is not so simple most of the days, but it’s okay anyway ‘cause we’re all on the same ride, all in the same boat, but not everyone can make it feel okay, anyway, and that is the job for the artist. That is why we exist. A place that must be filled. Music used in this episode: The American Dollar - Long March Broadripple Is Burning - The Glass Child: https://open.spotify.com/track/4cKHuBwoJrS9M3p4qcMjTD