Street Art Utopia - What is "real" Art?

What is Art? Why does an Artist spend his or her time, energy and tremendous efforts in pursuits that are often not payed for, or even acknowledged - especially if done anonymously? What is "real" Art? Is the "Audience" the most important thing for an Artist? Is the Artist's role to speak to the "Collective Unconscious" of mankind like the DreamMaker does to each one of us in our nightly dreams? (As: "All dreams come in the service health and wholeness." - Jeremy Taylor).

Does this explain why Street Artists do what they do? Does this explain why we almost all understand when we see "real" Art? And does this explain why Artists sometimes work for "free" monetarily (i.e. the "Starving Artist" stereotype), when the "real" remuneration for a "real" Artist is in this connection with their Audience?

Here are a few examples of anonymous Street Art that touched me: (please see http://www.streetartutopia.com/ for hundreds of examples from across the world).

(1) A little girl, being pulled by her busy mother who is ignoring the sad, begging man with a sign reading: "J'AI FAIM" (I'm hungry), kindly offers to him her precious sucker to assuage his pain.

Street Art in Bordeaux, France

From: http://www.streetartutopia.com/?p=8445
Photo by: http://bit.ly/pUgmGu

(2) An enormous but tender picture of a submerged girl in a rainstorm reading one of many pages of a love letter, and thereby transforming a tremendous eyesore and dull, urban blight into a bright and colorful canvas expressing an eternal message of love and hope.

Street Art by ARYZ - Galeria Urban Forms in Lodz, Poland

From: http://www.streetartutopia.com/?p=8564
http://www.galeriaurbanforms.org  is a listing on an interactive map of Lodz, Poland showing where to find as many as 20 large, street-art canvases like this one.

I believe Street Art - like any "real" Art - can transform ugly, shameful urban pain into priceless beauty and meaningful value. Thank you to all those anonymous "real" Artists whose work adds beauty and meaning to all of our lives. May you always follow your internal DreamMaker in the service of health and wholeness, while become a aid and messenger to the DreamMaker for all mankind.

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The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Here's an incredible lecture given by Dan Pink at RSA Animate and creatively animated by RSA which tells us that our larger motivations are not what we are led to expect in our normal cultural understanding. It explains why so many are motivated to work for free or even pay a high price to work toward "higher" goals and dreams. 

from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

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YouTube smiles! by Daniel Gardner

Uploaded by DanielGardner on Oct 20, 2008

Send this to anyone who needs a smile.

Music: "Sunray Smile" recorded by Amber Van Vleet (used with permission)

Download the song for free here:
http://www.thesixtyone.com/ambervv

Distributed by TubeMogul.com

Daniel uploaded the "Show your Smile" video 11 months ago, and over 280 YouTubers have made video replies since then. That's over 280 different smiles. This video is a compilation of 100 of those smiles and if it doesn't make you smile...see a doctor. :) Special thanks to the 280 youtubers who were brave enough to share their smiles.

Lyrics:
What a difference a sunray can make
in a world that's tired of the rain.
What a difference a smile can make
in a heart that's filled with pain.

(She had a) Sunray smile
Fairer then the spring or a rainbow
Sunray smile
Come to melt away the snow

The darkness of a shadow always flees
where ever a sunray is found
The darkness in a heart always leaves
when the glow of that smile is around

(She had a)
Sunray smile
Fairer then the spring or a rainbow
Sunray smile
Come to melt away all the snow.
In my heart today.

[Guitar chords: C G Am F G C (G) ]

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