Artistic Merit

That street musician that you passed on the sidewalk in Calgary last week, were they any good? Would you have even noticed if they were? What if that person was a world-renowned musician, who plays for sold out crowds, and you passed up a chance to experience them one on one, intimately, like friends at a kitchen party? In January 2007, in a Washington DC metro station, over 1000 people passed up just such a chance.
Joshua Bell, one of the world’s foremost violin masters played incognito for 45 minutes in a Washington DC metro station during morning rush hour. Of the over 1000 people who hurried passed during his performance, hardly anyone so much as glanced up from their head-down, all-business stride; barely a dozen bothered to stopped and actually listen. The longest that anyone listened was for a little over three minutes. Later, that man told the Washington Post (which had arranged the social experiment) that he had only stopped because he was five minutes early for work.
This poses some interesting questions about society’s priorities. I have to wonder, if we as a culture can’t spare even a few moments to stop and enjoy one of the greatest musical artists of our time, playing some of the most inspiring music every written on one of the most beautiful instruments ever crafted, what else are we missing? More than that though, I think this is a question about how we define art. Another analogy would be to take a Tom Thompson painting, remove it from its frame and hang it in a local coffee shop with a $150 price tag. One or two might look up at think “hmm, that looks kinda like a Tom Thompson” before going back to their café americano and the latest Dan Brown novel. Does that diminish the worth of Thompson’s work? Do you think he would care?
Was Joshua Bell’s performance, removed from its frame of a concert hall and a tuxedo, still art? If a masterful artist makes beautiful music, but fails to touch any of his audience emotionally, was the music still beautiful? Conversely, if something superficially inartistic manages to stir something in an audience, what is the significance of that? Jarome Iginla certainly has the power to touch people emotionally. I’ve seen full-grown men brought almost to tears by the Flames so narrowly missing the play-off finals. Is that art? Certainly you could argue there’s something artistic about the face splitting grin of an exhausted hockey player hoisting the Stanley Cup, but is that more or less artistic than all the inglorious hours spent in a gym that it took to get there?
You might be tempted to argue that sport is too focused on competition, on a clear winner and an obvious loser, to be considered an art. After all, art is not a competition; it is simply art for art’s sake. As an athlete, I can tell you that, while sport would not exist without competition, that isn’t necessarily the intended goal. The goal is not what lies at the end of the journey; the goal is the journey itself. Ask any of us why we do what we do, why we sacrifice decades of our lives just to be able to go from point A to point B faster than someone else. The answer you will always get is ‘Because we love it’, plain and simple. Is that any different than the art student who spends hours trolling coffee shops and book stores, pleading for somewhere to display their work? What’s the lowest common denominator between hours spent mixing paint, filling out training logs or hand folding a thousand home made CD liner notes? It’s been said that it takes 10 000 hours to perfect a skill, whether it’s playing the steel guitar, capturing the essence of a river in a camera lens, or figuring out exactly how to take a tight right hand corner at high speed while being jostled by 3 other skiers all trying to reach that red line in the snow before you do.
To me, art is defined by the passion behind it. By that measure, what we do on the roads and trails around Canmore is more artistic than most of what you’ll hear on a Top 40 radio station.
10 000 hours is a long time (a little over 416 days consecutively) and you don’t get there because you know it will pay well when you do, or because you want a medal of a different colour. You will only get there if you truly love what you’re doing. And here’s the kicker. If you love what you’re doing, it won’t matter whether people take notice. You can watch the video of Joshua Bell’s performance for yourself on the web. If you do, you will notice something right away. Of the over 1000 people who passed in front of the camera, Joshua Bell is the only one smiling.

Remember: on the mountain, as in life always ride that (soon to be snow-covered!) high line.