Earlier this year, Pretty Weird Art joined a writing group at our local library. The writing group is named "Prologue" and each time we meet, we participate in a writing prompt challenge. We're given a subject, words, or theme that we have to structure our assignment around.
For kicks and giggles, I'm sharing a few of our writing assignments from the class.
Writing Assignment #1: Write an essay that uses the following words randomly pulled from the dictionary: hubba-hubba, decerebrate, standard, Caucasian, and old guard.
Below is the essay Ethan wrote based off the prompts.
Van Gouge’s Missing Ear
Is it a waste of time to be creative just for creative’s
sake? To devote hours of one’s life to a project that has no immediate point or
purpose?
These questions filled my mind last Friday night as I
planned my activities for the weekend. I intended to spend Saturday and Sunday watching
tv and creating acrylic paintings of animals armed with medieval weapons that
were emblazoned with standards bearing the names “Battle Bunny” and
“Khan-Chilla” but a nagging voice in the back of my mind whispered that maybe I
should use my weekend for something…more productive. How will making candy
colored paintings of animals decerebrating each other make a difference in the
world?
What would the artists of yesteryear say if you poised a
similar question to them?
“Excuse me, Mr. Normal Rockwell?”
“Mr. Van Gouge?”
“Mr. Picasso?”
“How does your
artwork benefit society? What’s your rational for painting all day instead of
doing social work or something more meaningful?”
I imagine some of their answers would be utilitarian like “I
paint because it’s what I’m good at” or “I paint because I need money”. Maybe
they would say, “I paint because it allows me to influence people in ways other
people can’t. With one paint brush I have the ability to paint a portrait of a
beautiful woman that makes a man whisper “hubba hubba” and with another brush I
can paint a picture of the crucifixion that brings a tear to the Catholic eye.”
Last Saturday, 6 hours into my Netflix-fueled acrylic orgy, the
voice in my head asked me to rationalize why I was painting “Battle Bunnies”. All
I had were trite answers.
“Painting is relaxing. The activity diminishes the stress of
the workweek. Painting is fun. It gives a person a great sense of
accomplishment and well-being. A painting can make me money.”
The voice responded,
“You’re a Caucasian art-vampire. You slavishly devote your free time to
egocentric activities when you could be doing something more worthwhile.”
I didn’t have a strong rebuttal for the voice. Maybe a
person would make a greater impact in life if they put down the paintbrush and
picked up a volunteer form for some community outreach program. Would an artist
live a more full and rewarding life if he or she cut back on “pointless”
creative projects for the sake of something “important”? Then again, how useful
is an artist who does not create? How does one grow in ability unless they
pursue “pointless” projects? Is it irresponsible to have a talent for something
but not exercise it?
Such nagging questions probably haunted the old guard
artists as well. Would the world have been a better or worse place had Van
Gouge become a minister instead of a painter of paintings that nobody
considered useful?
Who knows, maybe those sorts of thoughts are what caused Van Gouge
to slice off his ear.
