With the stroke of a pen, revolution begins.

Flag of our Fathers
original digital art by x_1013_x

"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." -The Declaration of Independence, 1776

America, it's time for separation. The people who govern us no longer represent us. We have, by rights of our own electoral mistakes, allowed people into our government who want only to grow government's power and expand the capacity of their own coffers. In 1776, our founding fathers did the same. They declared their independence from a tyrant who wanted no more than to keep them under his thumb. I'm not purporting succession, but we must pull away from those who wish us harm and draw closer to those who truly support freedom. As the founders outlined in the Declaration of Independence, I will outline here the acts which support my feelings.

Members of Congress and the President have expressly broken the laws of process as put fourth in the Constitution of the United States.

They have convened in partisan, closed-door proceedings to deliberately stifle debate and obfuscate the public.

They have used bribery to coerce votes.

They have falsified findings and documents to erroneously support their efforts.

They have inveigled a once free press into reporting widely only what the government deems acceptable.

They have allowed into the governing process those with threatening beliefs and agendas.

They have supported the use of taxpayer funds to finance propaganda.

They have provided money and protection to organizations who blatantly ignore the law and oftentimes use physical and mental violence as methods of coercion.

They have overstepped their boundaries of commerce by injecting themselves into the private sector.

They have exploited misfortunes to emotionally manipulate the public.

They have slandered the reputation and names of their political foes and gone unpunished.

They have many times ignored the cries for assistance from our allies in order to appear more favorably to our enemies.

They have shown blazon disrespect for our history, our national symbols, and the memory of those who have died for our freedom.

Our outcry for accurate representation has fallen on deaf ears. Our pleas and demonstrations have been met with slander and injury. Our elected leader has exhibited all the traits that could be applied to a socialistic dictator and is in no way fit to represent the interests of a free people.

A revolution is upon us. Not a revolution of muskets and blood but of votes and knowledge. We know our enemy, their injustices have been displayed for us. We must rise up against our oppressors and take back our freedom!

Socialism: Now Brewing

Original graphic art by x_1013_x
Insipration: Coffee Parties

Click here to read my thoughts on the coffee parties.

To Thine Own Self Be True: Respecting Talent in Art

"...there is that quite numerous breed who would like to be artists—that is, long to be something more than to do something—and lacking the talent or the capacity for work and self-discipline exacted by traditional art, find in modernism the perfect answer to their prayers—an easy path to the attention they crave." —Thomas Maitland Cleland, "Progress" in the Graphic Arts

God Bless America and Her Allies by T. M. Cleland

Cleland, known to most as T.M. Cleland, was an American graphic artist and publisher. He saw this country in the heyday of capitalism, shiny with promise. He began his work in the early 1900's and continued until his death in 1963. He was an opinionated man with an eccentric working style. But he knew talent when he saw it, talent and hard work. He knew that craftsmanship and art went hand-in-hand. The above passage, from his 1948 address in Chicago hints at what was to come in the art world and this country as a whole. The paradigm was shifting from hard work to high-brow play and entitlement. The right-wing world of blood, sweat, and tears was now a left-wing paradise of beatnicks, art-o-philes, and posers. Art was no longer a livelihood, art was a hobby, a cheap and easy way to 'express oneself.' Anyone with the courage to misrepresent their abilities was given acclaim, acclaim that should have belonged to the hardworking craftspeople.

Cleland was a perfectionist craftsman. He was a dealer in clean lines and geometric certainty. He saw modern art, especially modern design, as an aberration. Modern art was loose, messy, and lacked proof of genuine talent. His opinion was one of a laborer, someone who's livelihood depended on the respect his art could garner him. In a time when art was becoming more of a fad than a livelihood, he had every right to be protective.

People don't magically develop the ability to recite a long line of prime numbers or paint a perfectly accurate portrait unless they're the victim of some sort of horrid injury to the brain. A spin of the genetic roulette wheel imbues us with certain abilities. If someone wants desperately to be a surgeon, they go to school, do the work, and find out whether they have the skill or not. They learn whether they're fit to be a surgeon hopefully before they get their hands on a live patient. Would you want someone messing around in your body cavities with a scalpel if they didn't have the talent or skill? No, you wouldn't. So why is it acceptable for people who can't draw, paint, design, or sculpt to use 'expression' and 'interpretation' as crutches to encroach on the respect owed to those who are naturally talented? Like it or not, aside from basic functions, humans are not all given the same talents.

From an early age, we learn to incorrectly define the term 'art.' Art can be anything, produced by anyone, even animals. It has been said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but even then, there are universally accepted 'fundamentals' of art that we should not ignore. As children, we scrawl poorly conceived representations of things and when we show off our 'masterpiece' we're met with standing ovations. The praise happens every time, no matter the quality. This reinforcement makes it easy for us to ignore the fundamentals. Why bother with something if it isn't necessary for success? Society's belief that self-esteem is better than self-realization tells us we can do anything, natural talent notwithstanding.

Author Andrew Klavan wrote in a blog post recently, "sacking the Pantheon doesn’t turn barbarians into gods." Creating a mess and calling it art doesn't make the creator an artist. Screeching out of key and calling it a song doesn't make someone a real singer. The reality show American Idol sheds light on this theory by showing us the difference between real vocal talent and a weightless, animalistic need for attention. Though this is an accurate comparison to my argument, visual art remains a playground for just about anyone who wishes to play. Conversely to singing, visual art fosters the belief that the less talent you have, the more you thumb your nose at convention, the more success you will have.

The rift between craftsmanship and art grew wider as people began to lose their individuality and feel more entitled. The ability to express themselves in their own way withered and they searched for what they thought would be an easy way to stand out. The all-too-human desire to be 'noticed' crossed paths with the arts and usurped the trail. Art, being always viewed as subjective, had little chance of fighting back against those who would abuse it. People just shrugged off the talentless examples as 'subjectively acceptable' and moved on. A craft which was once a way of simply making a living became a pretentious means of self-promotion and hollow praise.

I do not say any of this to be an elitist, rather, I speak as one who respects the niches in life to which we all belong. A poem I read as a child states, "If you is jes' a little tadpole / Don't try to be a frog, / If you is jes' the tail / Don't try and wag the dog." Being an individual doesn't mean you seek out the laurels of others and snatch the crown from their heads. We all have things that make us special, things we are inherently blessed to accomplish. All subjectivism aside, there are those who will always execute their craft better than others. The true path to fulfillment is not in doing passably what others do best, it's doing what you do best exceptionally well.

"Art was once the business of artists and not of writers and was taught to artists by other artists and not professors; and it's rather wholesome definition seems to have been—before anything was said about "art for art's sake"—the doing of anything, from ploughing to painting especially well. Craftsmanship was not suspect or thought to be ruinous to individuality—or perhaps individualities were not so feeble then that they could not survive the rigors imposed by craftsmanship. I do not know when the term "fine art" was invented and the breach between it and craftsmanship began to widen, but I have come to believe that it was a sorry day for both. For then, it seems to me, the spirit of art departed from its body and the body began to decay and the spirit to wander aimlessly in space." —Thomas Maitland Cleland, "Progress" in the Graphic Arts