In his fable entitled The Grasshopper and the Ants, the Greek fabulist Aesop relates the story of a grasshopper who comes upon some ants. The ants are preparing grain they had collected to keep them through the winter. The grasshopper, starving, begs the ants for some food. When the ants wonder why the grasshopper has no food of his own, he replies, “I had not leisure enough. I passed the days in singing.” The ants, unmoved by his plight, turn him down. The moral? Most agree the fable has to do with the virtues of preparedness and hard work. If the grasshopper hadn’t wasted all his time singing and more time preparing himself for the winter, his circumstances would have been much improved. Right action lay in following the industrious nature of the ants, in providence, and in avoiding idleness. Taken this way it seems rather clear cut. Plainly the ants hold the moral high ground.
But is it really so simple?
There are still arguments to this day over the fable’s implications. Part of this boils down to its abbreviated nature and ambiguous style. At face value it seems clear enough, but with further consideration the assumptions we may have formed instantly break down. With just a little reflection, moral clarity quickly evaporates. Things get muddy — fast.
Take, for instance, interpretations that place an artist — or culture — in the role of the grasshopper and industrial society in the role of the ant. Suddenly we’re confronted with hard questions, not only about compassion and charity, but also regarding the role and value of artists. If we assume the ants are in the right, we must assume that which the grasshopper represents is in the wrong — or, at the very least, it is of lesser import than the qualities represented by the ants. Therefore, arts and culture are of diminutive status, and should be treated as the frivolous distractions they are. While there are those who surely agree with this sentiment, it is clearly a bogus one. Given the outsized impact the arts and culture have on our everyday lives (especially during times of physical distancing), the idea that it is pointless or of little merit is, quite frankly, dumb. It serves little purpose to assume any differently.
The problem with this type of interpretation is that it pits one class of people against another. It draws a metaphorical line in the sand and forces us to consider something that is, in fact, a false dichotomy. There is simply no merit in even posing this type of question because, for one reason, there exists no meaningful way to ascertain anything resembling truth. How does one delineate the contribution of the arts and separate it from that of unadulterated industriousness in order to come an accurate valuation of both? What does that even look like? What does that even mean?
It doesn’t matter because the question is the wrong one to ask, and a ridiculous one at that.
The point here isn’t to say the fable offers no benefit. To the contrary, it does — even to those of us in the arts — it’s just that we have to take its lesson in its proper context. Rather than externalizing the characterizations, we must take the fable for what it was meant to be: a glimpse at our inner-selves, at the contending motivations contained within each and every one of us. What it really does is offer an opportunity to consider the balance or imbalance we showcase in our own lives. It asks us to think about the way we choose to act.
This is no small thing.
When we consider the contradictory forces that face artists everyday, we can see how important these considerations are. Take, for example, the role of business in art. There is a pervasive narrative which suggest business and art are such disparate domains they cannot exist within the same field of play. It is one of the reasons why many people still believe in the trope of the starving artist. By their account poverty is an inevitability or even, to some, a noble pursuit. Some artists, under the spell of these same ideas, vehemently refuse to engage with anything related to business and attack others who do for being “sell-outs” or somehow incapable of creating authentic artwork. This is, of course, the kind of secular zealotry which only serves to illustrate the necessity for education and self-reflection. It is the reason why the fable of The Grasshopper and the Ants exists in the first place, to dispel the idea that one can live a life at one extremity without facing the consequences of that choice.
In truth, practicing artists must always reconcile the relationship between business and art in order to find some form of equilibrium that allows them to thrive (assuming they are, of course, dedicated to their craft. Hobbyists who make a living in a different field are generally free to do what they will.) Those who do not, sadly, often find themselves in situations much like the fabled grasshopper. What that equilibrium looks like is different from person to person and depends on a host of factors, but it certainly isn’t anything unusual. There are many people who make a living in the arts, and Matt Flint is one of those people. As a Lander-based painter and mixed media artist who has built a successful career, Matt is well aware of the struggles facing those in the arts field. He is familiar with the doubts, the contradictions, the uncertainty and fear. He is also aware of the lingering false dichotomy regarding business and art, and the subsequent refusal to grant a reconciliation of any kind between the two, or even an accounting that allows for a more balanced approach to the issue.
“When I was in school many outside voices said that I could not make money as an artist,” he told me. “When I made money as an artist people said I was an exception.”
The proof of his example apparently wasn’t enough to convince skeptics to reconsider their assumptions.
Matt Flint grew up in rural Missouri surrounded, in his words, “by woods, animals, and family.” His childhood was spent exploring nature. “I spent hours wandering outside,” he told me, “carefully observing textures in a rock formation, spying on a deer, peeking in a birds nest, marveling at sunsets and sunrises, climbing trees, and watching the changing landscape.” The experience produced in him a deep abiding respect and fascination with the natural world, an enchantment that would later come to influence his work as an artist.
“My early contact with all things natural has become the core of how I understand and process what is around me,” he said.
As a child, Matt loved to draw and make things, and later, when he was in high school, an especially supportive art teacher encouraged him to pursue a career in the arts industry. He took that encouragement to heart and, upon graduation, decided to study illustration and commercial art at Missouri State University, located in Springfield, MO. After graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, Matt worked as a freelance illustrator for five years. “When I was working as an illustrator, I was also making paintings just for myself,” he told me. “I sent some images of my paintings to a poetry magazine in New York just to see if they would work as illustrations. The owner and editor of the magazine said they would not work in the magazine, but he liked them so much that he bought 5 pieces. That validation led me to create more paintings and to find a gallery.”
He then made the decision to attend Wichita State University, in Wichita, Kansas, to pursue a Master in Fine Arts degree in painting. It was a challenging experience, but an illuminating one, and it helped refine his approach to art. “Some of my darkest in my head moments [came] during grad school,” he told me. “The whole process is designed to make you dig deep into yourself and ask hard questions.”
Those hard questions proved important, and in his professional practice today, Matt has taken many of the realizations he made during his graduate education and adapted them to help propel the depth of his art. “In my work I am searching for essence,” he told me. “Something more powerful than likeness.” It is an approach that allows him to create art that is striking, not just from a visual standpoint, but from an emotional one as well. It serves, also, to showcase the power artists hold in their hands, the potential creative people hold within themselves to create work that can be beautiful as well as impactful. It is noteworthy, especially since that result seems to fly in the face of the notion that art must fall into some distinct camp, be it thematically benign or proselytizing, and indeed that is why Matt’s approach to art is special. It is balanced such that it results in something that is both alluring and thought-provoking.
There is a lesson in that, for artists and others, about the way we manage the dichotomies we face in life.
Matt’s is one way to approach the contradictory forces we face everyday and, like the fables of Aesop, it gives us insight into ways we might handle those forces in more suitable ways ourselves.
The power of fable lays in the strength of metaphor, a rhetorical device that serves to illuminate specific aspects of our internal selves that we might otherwise overlook. Aesop’s fable of The Grasshopper and the Ants serves as a perfect example of this, and demonstrates the efficacy of metaphor as a teaching tool. The fable presents two opposing sensibilities in the form of anthropomorphic insects and, despite its overall simplicity, after only a brief burst of an interaction our minds are churning with the story’s implications. It doesn’t take much, just a few sentences, but suddenly we become aware of something wider than the narrative, something of more significance than a few insects. This is the magic of metaphor, an ability to introduce parallels between distinct objects from different contexts, and Aesop employs it masterfully, using it to spotlight inner dimensions we oftentimes forget exist. It is a valuable service because, truthfully, how often do we contemplate the push and pull contained within ourselves? How much consideration do we give to our own inner conflicts, to the wavering between prudence and indulgence, or of capriciousness and predictability? Unfortunately, most of us are too busy, too distracted, or too uninterested to sit and reflect in any deep way without a prompt of some sort. Aesop understood that. It is why his fables exist in the first place, to facilitate that kind of reflection. In the case of The Grasshopper and the Ants, Aesop is asking us to reflect upon sentiments at odds within each of us because he understood the risks we face by ignoring them. He understood the polarities confronting us daily, and knew an ill-considered life would lead to an imbalanced life overall.
But, he knew, realizing and maintaining a contemplative life is difficult work.
It is all too easy, sadly, for us to inhabit an extremity. It takes no great effort or hard-won reconciliation to do so. And, more often than not, we’re encouraged or incentivized to persist in whatever extremity we’ve taken to, whether in the social arena, by institutional design, or simply out of belligerence. But this is dangerous. When one mindlessly occupies an extremity, the resulting imbalance only fuels conflict and further imbalance. This is why self reflection is vital, so one may consciously address the complexities of life in order to make decisions which lead to a more balanced and fruitful one. It is the underlying principle of nearly every philosophical system that has ever been devised.
But this reflection is no easy thing, and even the most brilliant thinkers understand that it is not something everyone has the time, patience, or capacity to pursue. That is why Aesop shared his lessons in the way he did, to aid contemplation in a way that remained accessible to people from all walks of life. He provides a primer that helps cultivate the kind of reflective mind that is required to lead a more balanced life.
While some might think the fable of The Grasshopper and the Ants favors industriousness over all — and thus, an imbalanced approach to life — this is not the case. In truth, taken in its proper context, the fable actually encourages the sense of balance we so desperately need. While the grasshopper certainly acted against his own best interest by spending all his time singing, the ants can in no way be taken as the heroes of the story. They are portrayed as being cold, derisive, and uncompromising. Other fables, also attributed to Aesop, portray ants of a similar sensibility in a less favorable light, and as being clearly in the wrong. Taken together and what you’re left with, instead of an argument for one extremity over the other, is the story of a spectrum leading from one characteristic to another, the extremities of which are to be avoided. The question then becomes a matter of equilibrium. How does one find the harmony between these two conflicting tendencies? This is the purpose of these fables, to highlight the fact these issues exist and to encourage one to think about how they can be resolved in one’s own life. It is a call for reflection, not an authoritative statement.
And, interestingly enough, a similar appeal for reflection can be found in the visual art of Matt Flint.
Stand in front of a Matt Flint painting and you’ll immediately be drawn into it. They are labyrinthine in appearance, layered and imprinted with textural variation, subtle color shifts, aggressive abstractions, and feathered gradients. As you change perspective you discover new patterns, unseen strokes, and an altogether new way of observing the piece. They are neither true likenesses nor altogether abstract, but lyrical and earthbound all at once. His work runs the gamut, but somehow remains unified in a way that feels miraculous.
“I want to demonstrate the mortality of my subjects, the dichotomy of strength and fragility,” Matt told me. “Nature’s raw and beautiful allure that calls to us and runs through us.”
“Like the rhythmic cycles of change seen in the natural world, my painting process is intuitive, elusive, and built through layers of creation and destruction,” he added. “As one image comes into focus another is fading away, retaining a piece of the previous while hinting at what might come next. In this way the work is in flux, shifting back and forth spatially between being up close and yet at a distance.”
It is in this ability to shift that Matt’s work finds its contemplative power. While it may depict a recognizable subject — a bear, a horse, a wolf or even a dog — the scattered light, irregular strata, and unpredictable strokes by which that subject is formed create a visual push and pull that leaves viewers in an in-between state. It is an ephemeral place where one finds oneself confronted by what was, what is, and what could be all at once, as though in a dream. It is as if the possibilities of life were laid out in a way that doesn’t require a choice between them, but simply requires one to observe the fact they exist. In that way Matt Flint is a fabulist in his own right, and like Aesop he’s presenting us an opportunity for reflection, as if he were asking us to resolve the complexities each of us face, and to do so in ways that allow us to lead rich, alluring lives of our own. His is a message that seems clear, but remains enigmatic all the same. It refrains from prescription, requiring us to find answers for ourselves — to do the hard work necessary to find our own sense of balance.
There are many difficulties to be found within the arts industry. Part of this is due to the fact it is an industry that regularly operates in an imbalanced way. Frequently, hopeful entrants invest significant time and resources to achieve a level of expertise expected to gain access to the industry, only to find those expectations have turned on a dime. This creates an uneven playing field upon which entrants must play an endless game of catch-up. Unfavorable terms and predatory contracts are not unusual things. Bad-faith actors take advantage of enthusiastic aspirants — and occasionally seasoned pros — causing widespread distrust that further poisons the well. If there is one perception of the arts industry that rings true, it is that the industry as a whole is, to put it mildly, dysfunctional. This is not to say that it is bad, but rather to illustrate the need for a more thoughtful approach moving forward. It is time for reflection.
One thing artists can do is spend time contemplating the contradictory forces at work in their own lives and careers. Where do the asymmetries exist, and how can you work towards something resembling equilibrium? What new skills must you learn to achieve that? What new approach might you need to follow? What steps can you take that will help create a more equitable system in the future?
These are hard questions to answer, and in order to do so one must possess the kind of reflective mind Aesop hoped to inspire in those who learned from his fables. One must also have the courage to face hard truths about oneself and commit to a program of personal development that may well feel uncomfortable or at odds with long held assumptions. It can be a painful process — even disheartening — but in times of doubt I find it valuable to look to exemplars who’ve shown that the hard work can be done. They are the ones who, wittingly or not, have blazed trails over terrain which appeared impassable. They are the ones who’ve let presumptions roll past them as they steadily climb to new heights and new truths. For me, Matt Flint is one of those exemplars.
In a field rife with misconceptions, Matt Flint’s example proves many of them wrong, including those which suggest, in his words, “that artists are irresponsible and lack business skills.”
“My peers and I have to be professional and business savvy to create the art life that we enjoy,” he told me. “I’ve learned so much about business and networking through the art world.”
This is, to me, among the most valuable lessons Matt’s example can impart, that one can rise above suppositions about one’s own capabilities simply by refusing to take them at face value and doing what needs to be done to shift the paradigm in a more satisfactory direction. The power of this approach is revealed when we realize that lessons learned are rarely confined to one particular arena, that they can be applied to a range of circumstances, which means their impact can be more widely felt. The fact that the business savvy Matt gained served him well in his career as an artist as well as in other domains in his life is a case in point. Business skills he acquired proved invaluable when he and his wife opened The Lander Bakeshop, a community mainstay located on Main Street in Lander, Wyoming.
In truth, many artists suffer in part because they’ve chosen to believe in a false dichotomy which tells them the business of art should not, or cannot, involve business at all. This is a skewed perspective, and one which only leads to more imbalance and further distress. It is a vision which imprisons what it means to be an artist in shackles of sublime unreality.
“People often have a romantic idea of what being an artist is,” Matt told me. “They don’t realize how much work is involved.”
And, he added, “It is not always fun or exciting.”
As Aesop would have us know, a fulfilling life takes effort on our part.
So, let’s commit to the hard work.
Let’s find our balance.
Matt Flint’s work can be found at Gallery MAR in Park City, UT, Gallery Wild in Jackson Hole, WY, Visions West Gallery in Bozeman and Livingston, MT, SmithKlien Gallery in Boulder, CO, and Underscore Gallery in Whitefish, MT. Stay updated by visiting his website and following him on Instagram.
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Nick Thornburg is a multidisciplinary artist and writer. Follow Nick and share the work on social media. Subscribe to his mailing list to keep up-to-date with upcoming features and other news.
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