{"id":1589,"date":"2006-07-15T13:01:51","date_gmt":"2006-07-15T20:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2006\/07\/15\/the-artists-duty\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:43:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:43:23","slug":"the-artists-duty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2006\/07\/15\/the-artists-duty\/","title":{"rendered":"The Artist&#8217;s Duty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some food for thought&#8230; discovered at <a href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/\">Whiskey River<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><b>The Artist&#8217;s Duty<\/b><\/p>\n<p>So it is the duty of the artist to discourage all traces of shame<br \/>\nTo extend all boundaries<br \/>\nTo fog them in right over the plate<br \/>\nTo kill only what is ridiculous<br \/>\nTo establish problem<br \/>\nTo ignore solutions<br \/>\nTo listen to no one<br \/>\nTo omit nothing<br \/>\nTo contradict everything<br \/>\nTo generate the free brain<br \/>\nTo bear no cross<br \/>\nTo take part in no crucifixion<br \/>\nTo tinkle a warning when mankind strays<br \/>\nTo explode upon all parties<br \/>\nTo wound deeper than the soldier<br \/>\nTo heal this poor obstinate monkey once and for all<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nTo verify the irrational<br \/>\nTo exaggerate all things<br \/>\nTo inhibit everyone<br \/>\nTo lubricate each proportion<br \/>\nTo experience only experience<\/p>\n<p>To set a flame in the high air<br \/>\nTo exclaim at the commonplace alone<br \/>\nTo cause the unseen eyes to open<\/p>\n<p>To admire only the absurd<br \/>\nTo be concerned with every profession save his own<br \/>\nTo raise a fortuitous stink on the boulevards of truth and beauty<br \/>\nTo desire an electrifiable intercourse with a female alligator<br \/>\nTo lift the flesh above the suffering<br \/>\nTo forgive the beautiful its disconsolate deceit<\/p>\n<p>To flash his vengeful badge at every abyss<\/p>\n<p>To HAPPEN<\/p>\n<p>It is the artist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s duty to be alive<br \/>\nTo drag people into glittering occupations<\/p>\n<p>To blush perpetually in gaping innocence<br \/>\nTo drift happily through the ruined race-intelligence<br \/>\nTo burrow beneath the subconscious<br \/>\nTo defend the unreal at the cost of his reason<br \/>\nTo obey each outrageous impulse<br \/>\nTo commit his company to all enchantments.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Kenneth Patchen<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some food for thought&#8230; discovered at Whiskey River. The Artist&#8217;s Duty So it is the duty of the artist to discourage all traces of shame To extend all boundaries To fog them in right over the plate To kill only what is ridiculous To establish problem To ignore solutions To listen to no one To [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-quotes"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12259,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions\/12259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}