I have learned something very new today, and i curse myself for not learning it before this. And after understanding this issue, I have regain my respect for those whom I thought has gone astray from the true essence of the pure meaning of the arts.
When I started doing contemporary art, my intentions were just to be relevant in the movement of the arts, to have a voice that every artisan would listen to. Well, to an extent, I am what I would consider "relevent" well at least to my peers and some of my family members. Some of the insights that comes out from me i would consider useful, others are just a broken verbal pipeline. as I moved on with this notion of relevance in my head, I became a "head level" artist. a thinker, politics, sosialism, marxism in the arts were my fundamentals.
I started to consider those artists who were talented but "stuck" selling touristic art in the sunday market are just doing it for the money, and some as I further thought were just creatively blocked, having no other paintings except those which represent nature, landscapes , animals... things that i thought were boring beyond belief. but today, I learned something..something very important.
as I was walking in Deasoka, just beside Gaya street, there was a bazaar of crafts and art done by local artists. i listened as a senior painter who was teaching a junior painter on how thing are in the strokes of his brush. he was telling him that when his "jiwa" is in the painting then he would feel his strokes and he will find himself in the painting. at first it didn't mean anything to me, but as thought about it, it gave me this revelation that painting for this "touristic" painter, is actually something that gives them motivation to do it again again and again and again, it was more than just a motivational nudge, it was spiritual. with every brush stroke, it brings them closer and closer to that something that they long to be with, be it nature, a passed wife or husband...or maybe even God.
Whatever that thing is, it has a very powerful connection with Sabahan artists, a people who are very much "heart level" and almost in tuned with culture 24/7 365. I assume this experience would also give them some amount of pleasure, so for people who complain that the Sabah art scene in Stagnant, think again, they are doing it because they are getting something great out of it, something that money cannot buy, something that a lay man could not explain, something that we cannot touch or see. one thing for me to do now is to find out for myself what the hell this "thing" is...
