Still from my latest purely personal project "She Walks in Beauty," which I shot with my little sister.
Art is often at the mercy of many things: subject to criticism, indebted to finances, questioned, even, in its legitimacy to even be termed "art" at all.
"Ars gratia artis," art for art's sake is a rare thing, rarer in an age of "makers" and "doers" and "influencers." Which is not necessarily all bad. It is easier than ever to publish this art we make, easier to make the things we made for ourselves accessible to all.
But the principle behind creating for the pure sake of creating, I feel, serves a very important purpose: to feed the soul. Personal expression, even if only to express for the sake of expressing touches upon some buried element of what it means to be human. Beauty truly freed from a need to be valued by anyone else by any other standard, aside from pure existence, frees something deep within.
Poetry, in particular, seems bred from this purer motive. Born of a noble pursuit of beauty.
And, in homage to the many poems and poets to whom I am so indebted, I have decided to try to incorporate more "ars gratia artis" into my work. Heaven forbid, I ever cease to wander humbly as a pilgrim of the beauty of this world.