Bullshit Artist
anthony bruni
We are mid about mid-winter which can be a difficult time of year for many. It's easy at least for me to become overwhelmed and fail to see all the opportunity in the chaos. So I wrote a whimsical reminder that creativity stems often from what we don't want to deal with.
As a kid. I often heard people refer to as bullshit artists. It was a funny way to say someone is not to be trusted, that they were full of shit. Thinking about that phrase now for whatever neuro-mystical reasons, I see the potential for it to be an authentic non-ironic complement. If I shift my thoughts away from the word bullshit and focus on the word artist in this linguistic equations I see how calling someone a bullshit artist should be one of the highest compliments one can be bestowed with. An artist makes sense out of the chaos of existence. They organize our perception of the world in ways that hopefully more beneficial than our current ones. It doesn't matter the medium an artist use. Bulshit is a valid of a medium as any other. There is certainly is no shortage of bullshit. I don’t know what you may consider being bullshit. Your bullshit is unique to you as my bullshit is unique to me. What you consider to be bullshit I might not see as bullshit or vice versa. Despite not knowing what you personally see as bullshit I would wager that you see some bullshit in the world. Should not anyone that can make art out of bullshit not be knighted, sainted, promoted, or at least giving a good job scratch and sniff sticker.
I write this as Imbolc, or groundhog day in muggle-speech is nearing. It is the halfway point between winter and spring. I think how a true bullshit artist would promptly celebrate the groundhog. This midpoint between winter and spring is the time to feed the soil if we have a garden. Time to Manure. Now is the time I see to become a bullshit artist. Not as in being full of shit, but in taking all the bullshit in the world, and grinding it up and fertilize whatever art we are conjuring.
Happy Groundhogs Day
Anthony Bruni