Strange title I know but it has reason.

We are artists but we are more than that, one of the things we forget in this day and age is that we are also a voice.

We have been for many a millennia, since man first realised he could add colour to a wall in a cave he has expressed himself and shown others the world he lives in.

Its the one thing that binds us together as a species is the ability to express through art, it has no boundaries, it has no religion, it has no race, it is simply art.

In the not so distant past we used art as a voice, we had the ability to show the rest of the world what they needed to see.

From the beauty of dew on the petal of a rose to the barbarity and brutality of war.

From the hope of man reaching out for the future to the despair of a child starving to death.

As artists we brought it to the masses, we showed the world through our eyes, we used art as a way of making humankind question itself, to look within itself.

How many times have you looked in awe at an old masters work, the detail, had the desire to reach out and touch it to see if could covey as much feeling to you through touch as its does through sight?

As we progress we are becoming more and more sterile, we are living in a world that is so fast that we no longer see what is there.

"Art" is churned out in factories and is sold to the masses to fit in with the colour schemes of living rooms, content and composure mean nothing as long as it looks pretty on a wall.

Why?

Because as artists we stopped shouting, we have become nothing more than a whisper, we simply accept the world for what it is, media brings war to our doors every day, we have become acclimatised, Ikea sells prints by the thousands, we no longer see the beauty.

I have been reading John Paul Thornton's book "Art And Courage" [link] were he talks about how art impacts the world and I quote:

"Recognise how you are a part of a lineage of artists who took risks and made a stand against fear."

Maybe the time has come to learn how to make a stand again, maybe the time has come to look beyond the mass media and what it churns out on a minute by minute basis, maybe its time to stop whispering?

I know I have some rethinking to do, do you?