What is art?

I'm sitting here listening to Amy Winehouse. After her death and people talking so much crap about her, I decided to go buy a CD. Funny thing is, I've been listening to Amy for years. Her voice is all over the place here in Italy, especially the top 40 stations. They like her more classical style, which is similar to singers here from the sixties and early seventies. So I've heard almost everything from her album and I just never knew it was her.

And I had a thought to someone on Facebook who said, "Yeah, I listened to her, and she's overrated. Musical genius? I don't think so."

It's easy to dismiss any artist in this way. Don't like the art? Then say, "This isn't real art," or variations of it. Then the object of your disdain is dismissed. No one checks the critic's credentials, because everyone is qualified to decide what art is and is not.

I disagree. People have the right to decide what they like. This much is true, and it is also true that not every piece of art works. Consider Van Gogh's The Potato Eaters, which he loved, but even his brother, his biggest fan, just couldn't see the appeal. Now it hangs in a museum where artists marvel at it for hours. But we marvel it now through a lens of time, and with a filter of Van Gogh's entire career. The viewers of his time had no reverence for him the way we do, so this was just another art misfire.

But, it is still art. It is just art that initially missed its target market.

So, is Amy Winehouse art? Absolutely, yes. Her prose ability is incredible in the album Back To Black, and every song tells a story. Maybe not a happy story, but there are a thousand pop bands cranking out the happy if you need it. But Amy is going to the dark side of the storybooks to talk about loss, infidelity, and addictions.

Every song is a work of art, a short story that I could never hope to craft with such brevity. I suck at short stories, and I'm a lousy poet. So looking at Amy's talent, yes, I'm in awe of her. Yes, she's an artist. She might not appeal to everyone, but she had an amazing level of writing talent, even before you consider her voice. And where painters have brushes to express the inner voice of their muses, Amy created the mood and setting for her stories with her voice. As an amateur writer AND an amateur singer, I can't help but respect that.

There's a lot of artists out there who don't do anything for me, but I wouldn't say they're not real artists. That's because I'm all too aware of the erasing power of the word real. I can be dismissed as not a real woman. I can be dismissed as not being a real writer, or as not a real artist. Again, nobody needs criteria or credentials to get away with this dismissal and erasure. Just, "You're not a real ____", and it's a valid critique.

I can say, "That's a crap artist." I have no problems venting my ire on art that doesn't appeal to me. So, let me be clear. Art that rubs you the wrong way, don't be afraid to vent some. And don't think I'm saying, "Be nice with your critiques." Go look at my reviews for things I don't like. Do I try to be nice? Hell no! But I'm venting at the work. I'm not going to dismiss the artist as not real, or dismiss the fans of the art as "posers who don't know what real art is." I can be pissed off and raving about a book, and still not attack the artist or their fans.

And that's what I'm trying to preach about to y'all. Yes, it is perfectly all right to bet mad. But don't let anger lead to something uglier. You can tear down a crap book without attacking the author. You can criticize a bad album without claiming that the band members aren't real musicians. You can…and now we just have to get you in the habit of actually doing it.

We need to get folks away from this need to invalidate other people because they don't meet up to our personal standards. This is not to be confused with being made to like everything. Maybe you gave Amy Winehouse a listen and decided she wasn't for you. That's okay. But where we've got to break folks of a bad habit is the need to elevate themselves over the object of their dislike.

It's one thing to say, "I tried Amy Winehouse and didn't like her." But it becomes a personal attack when you strip her of her status as a real artist. And no matter how mild you may feel that attack is, it's not a defensible attitude. It's a piss poor attitude, and it's not really a valid criticism. It's a dismissal to shut up anyone who might want to discuss her artistic merits. It shuts down discussions with a final verdict that says, "I'm close-minded and unwilling to hear other perspectives on this topic."

Art is any product crafted by a person with the intent to be shared with others. A five-year-old crafting a clay ashtray for a mother who's never smoked is still an artist, even if her art completely missed the mark. Yes, she's a silly artist, and her career may not last past kindergarten. But she's just as much an artist as Van Gogh.

Amy Winehouse is an artist as much as Eddie Van Halen is, as much as Janelle Monáe is. They're all so talented that every time I listen to them, I'm awed and humbled by their work. And they do all this in five minutes. I need a whole novel to inspire emotions. These folks can do it in a few well placed notes. These are artists who command my respect and get it.

But I am an artist too. I just work with a different media than they do. In my line of art, lots of people have decided to support and endorse corporate art exclusively. They claim art that pleases them takes absolute precedence over art that challenges or offends. Written art should entertain from the first page; nay, from the first sentence, or it is not worth absorbing.

Obviously, I don't agree with this, and obviously, I don't sell very well because I intentionally write books meant to challenge these formulas. I write slow introductions. I write characters who are morally varying shades of grey rather than cast everyone using black and white values. And because of my insistence on going against the grain, I am not a popular artist. I have always accepted that I would not be popular, and I'm not exactly working hard at pushing into the mainstream. I rather enjoy being an alternative indie writer whom no self-respecting big publisher would take on for fear of my mouth ruining my sales.

But am I a real artist? Yes, and nothing anyone says can strip me of my title now that I've taken it for myself. You can criticize me for not "doing it right." You can dump on me for writing about subjects you don't want to read. But you can never take away my title. What I put out DOES create a reaction, and while many of you don't get me, there's plenty of other folks do.

So yes, I am an artist, and what I make is art. Whether it is good or serves a purpose is entirely up to the readers.