What Art Means to Me

We Are The Shadow People 046b
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

What Art Means to Me

This morning I had reason to ask myself, “How important is art to me?”

I was already late to work, but I came upon this exquisite scene of shadow people, and I knew, I knew, that I had to stop, pull out the camera and take a few photos.

I also knew that indulging this compulsion was going to make me even more late to work, again.

“Huh!” my alter ego huffed, “Now, how could you be so damned irresponsible?”

Nonetheless and allthemore, I ignored my subconscious prodding and pressed on with what I had to do. For art is important to me.

So important that I am willing to risk being tardy at the office; so important that I consider it essential to living my life as it should be lived; so important that it is essentially—my daily bread.

In fact, I often find myself forgoing meals for the sake of finishing my art work. I rather starve a little, than not see a project through from start to finish, even when I can barely keep my eyes open, even when “just one more photograph, just one more paragraph” means getting only 4 hours of sleep again, even though every night I swear to myself that I’m going to go bed early, even though I know I have rarely heeded such lofty resolutions.

If I was stranded on a deserted island and could only have five things to survive, art would be one of them. Or at least, the impulse to create art would have to be part of my survival kit along with air, water, food, and…a pretty partner.

For I’ve lived and loved and died a million love-deaths on this Manhattan Island for the last 15 years now, and I’ve come to realize that creativity helped pull me through, creativity pushed me on despite the odds, despite the nonsense, despite what seemed like a dead end over and over again; art sustained me, because art brings meaning into my life.

And so, late or not, I had to take these pictures of the shadow people.


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