Art

 

A Secretary Is Not a Toy

That a secretary is not a toy
No, my boy
Not a toy to fondle and dandle
And playfully handle
In search of some puerile joy
No, a secretary is not
Definitely not
A toy

And an artist is NOT his work of art.

The worst blowout in College Football happened in 1916 when Georgia Tech beat Cumberland College by a score of 222-0.  Apparently the football coach of Georgia Tech, who was also its baseball coach, wanted to enact vengeance because of a baseball loss to Cumberland College of 22-0.  Cumberland College had disbanded its football team and tried to get out of the game.  The Georgia Tech coach refused and the game was to be played as scheduled.  A ragtag football team was assembled from the student body for just this game.  Georgia Tech scored on every possession in the inevitable slaughter.  The vengeful football coach of Georgia Tech?  John Heisman. Yes, the same coach whose name is honored in the Heisman trophy.

Sticking with a college football theme,  Pop Warner was the coach at the Carlise Indian School where he was not above cheating to win his games against other college football teams.  In fact many of his efforts to bend the rules of his day were adopted to become the regulations of what we know today as football.

It isn’t only college football.  Vincent Van Gogh was a madman who cut off his own ear.  Thomas Jefferson owned slaves when he wrote the Declaration of Independence.  Kevin Spacey won an Oscar for his performance in American Beauty before his sexual assault scandals.  Bill Cosby was America’s Dad before his own scandals. Has anyone seen the movies The Imitation Game or A Beautiful Mind?

All humans, including artists, are flawed beings.  The Bard was being ironic when he wrote “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones”.  Often it is the good that lives after them and the evil that is buried with their bones.  What endures is art.  The art may be judged as good or great, even if the artist is flawed.  You might expect great art from certain artists, but that does not make those artists without flaws.  The art may be great, but the artist, as a human, can be not so great. Don't confuse the two. "Love the sinner, but hate the sin" works both ways. You can "Love the art, but hate the artist".