The Importance of Being an Artist: One listener's virtual interpretation of 'Evening' from 'Slow to Burn

Art is the greatest equalizer. Whether Democrat, Independent, Progressive, Republican or Undecided, Art - music, literature, painting, poetry - serves to communicate our collective ideals, values, and beliefs: our fears, frailties, strengths and desires.

Music is perhaps the most potent and vital art because it pulses, it breathes, it inhabits the spaces in which we gather; it haunts our dreams and awakens our memories. Music ignites our unconscious and fires our imaginations. 

It is that same core of our humanity that is touched by Mozart, Pink Floyd, Billie Holiday, The Knife, Francoise Hardy and Etienne Daho, irrespective of the listener's political leanings.

We live in virtual as well as tangible realm. One feeds the other in multiple and manifold ways. To be an artist is to live in all realms simultaneously, detecting the subtle flickers of existence that would otherwise go unnoticed. To the artist, everything is worth noticing.

The virtual world is a means for connecting but can often be distancing, as well. For me, making music achieves the most direct form of communication of all the arts, as it reaches the listener's ear with no intermediary. This video by CreativeGeniusAtWork illustrates this - virtually and beautifully.