Onwards I must charge! I'm feeling that this music is completed, but I know that no matter how good I think it is, or how happy or unhappy I am with it, it is the world I must convince to give it a try, which is always the hard part. First; here is the final cover. I needed to change the Marius Fate text so I signed his name in ink and converted it to a spline form using Inkscape.
I feel I'm getting to the end of this long project, and this means a withdrawal and sadness. The hard work is over, and I'm starting to think "what is this all for?" but then, isn't that the case with all art? I love art because it is the ultimate challenge: social, technical, mental, spiritual, physical. Artist is the ultimate profession because it is you alone and your abilities, however great, however small, doing your best at any subject you choose, and normally doing something rejected by the rest of society. It is the very abstract nature, the very freedom, of it that gives us the chance to prove and do something extraordinary, something that nobody has thought of doing, or that nobody would ever consider doing. The best of art is what others consider mad, strange, obscure, pointless, and it is this very factor that makes it magical, because we have chosen to excel at something unique.
Art is the ideal training of mind, soul, body, and will, because all of these things are needed. To be creative we must be alone, because creativity is necessarily individual. We must have discipline and conviction; enough humility to improve ourselves, but enough empathy to do something that others will see truth in. Truth, yes, it is our truth in our work, and this personal honesty that is the vital ingredient. The only morality is honesty, and this is the target of every artist: to prove this honesty, and in craft this is done by putting in a seemingly ridiculous amount of time, effort and care into something. It is perhaps for this reason that art is like prayer, a meditation on being and the fundamental purpose of life itself. Like a quest for a supreme god; art is a quest for an abstract perfection.
The Modern Game is nearly complete, and now I'm working on a book for it. In this digital world it is physical things that are special. It's also time I put together my circus themed poetry collection. Poetry is truly the hardest art form. All poets seems to think that they are the truest of all artists, being a poet is almost an egomaniacal disease, but perhaps this is because poetry appears to be so easy when it is this very accessibility that makes it the hardest of all art forms. The best poets I know don't rate their work, the poets that talk the most are the worst. I want my poetry collection to push some boundaries, but won't spend too much life essence on it. Greater masterpieces are at hand.
My art seems to be a clutter of old work; old, poor things that I need to clear out to move on. I know I can do so much better now, in all fields, than ever before. I must, and will do this, carefully and with due focus.
