W. G.The Woven Guild

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. Medicine, law, business, engineering — these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love — these are what we stay alive for.”

-John Keating, Dead Poets Society

Art that is born from the hand of a scarred poet, a bleeding painter, and a tortured filmmaker will save us. There are many more people in art whom I haven’t named — the shattered elderly man with his dying passion for photography, the quiet graphic designer, the singer with dreams blanketed by corporations, the playwright with hundreds of scripts tied up, ready to be burnt, because what’s in a theatre that isn’t on an OTT platform?

Passion.

Art can be found in many, yet limited forms, but it can be interpreted boundlessly. There’s beauty, tragedy, ambition, grief, joy, love, distress, gratitude, death, and life in art. There’s beauty in the mere existence of art.

What capitalism can’t do, art will — save us.

I don’t consider, and never will, art as an industry. ‘Art Industry’, you say? Art was never an industry, nor will it ever be.

Industry can be taught — art cannot.

Industry can be bought — art cannot.

Industry can shut down — art cannot.

And will not.

Art is awareness. Art is power. Art is resistance. Art is protection.

Art is Art.