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The Role of Art in Star Liner


The paperback version of my novel Star Liner came out a month ago and this allowed a number of my friends (who won’t read ebooks) a chance to read and comment on it. One of them said something to me the other day that struck home. The novel is a science fiction space opera that is part murder mystery and part action/adventure. But she said it seemed to her that there was an underlying theme to the novel. It is about art. Even though I was not consciously trying to make a statement about art, it is there. I can see what she means.

In some ways even though the story of Star Liner takes place centuries into the future, in some ways it is similar to our own. Jan, my main character, is an artist. I am using artist in a broad sense to encompass any form of artistic endeavor. Jan himself is a singer and actor, but it would not matter if he were a painter, composer, sculptor, or a poet. The same problem faces artists of his century that face artists in our own time: it is really hard to make a living through your art. Once in a while lightning strikes, and an artist finds him/herself capturing the public’s attention and jobs and opportunities flow to them. But 99.99% of the time, artists languish in anonymity. They may have to relegate their art to a hobby (or give up on it altogether). There are new opportunities for artist in the world we live in. Social media, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. have allowed an exposure to artists that was hardly dreamed of before such things existed. But the flipside of that is that the public expects to be entertained for free now. It is hard to make a living if you are giving away your art.

Another aspect about the art is the reason that Jan is the main character in the first place. Bad things happen on the star liner. There are murders and even worse crises that befall the passengers and crew of the ship. Through it all, Jan looks for ways to help. He comes up with novel suggestions. I like to think that the reason he comes up with these ideas is that he is an artist. He looks at the world differently; he thinks outside the box. Those who run the ship are very good at their jobs, but when things occur outside their training and experience, they have a very limited set of responses. I guess subconsciously I made Jan the hero because he is an artist.

Another thing I did was to shamelessly promote the play Doc Holiday and the Angel of Mercy, written by Vaughn Marlow. Now this I did fully consciously. I have Jan perform the play on the ship. I knew Vaughn Marlow who has sadly passed on now. The play is a wonderful work that touches the soul as well as entertains. It deserves to be performed and seen. My including it was my small way of getting it out into the public consciousness. You see, whether you “make it” in the world as an artist does not necessarily have to do with how talented you are. There are fantastically talented people (like Vaughn) who the world will never know simply because they were never in the right time or place, or knew the right people.

The roll of art is pretty important in our lives. We are all touched by art. We are not all touched by the same art because we are all different. We all like different types of music, different types of movies, and different types of books etc. Show me a person who does not like any kind of art. You can’t. Without art in our lives, living would just be existing. Art encourages the better angels of our nature.
The late radio commentator Paul Harvey once broadcast a radio essay called “The Power of Art over Argument.” I didn’t always agree with Paul Harvey, but in this case he was spot on. He demonstrated with various examples how a piece of art changed opinions (sometimes changed history) more dramatically than had been attained by any other form of persuasion. There is a piece of art referred to in Star Liner (in this case a photograph) that has a profound impact on how the rest of the world views Jan. We never get to see the photo. That is the limitation of the written word. Another friend told me that he wished there were video with this book because he really wanted to see Tanya’s dance. Ah well . . . That is what imagination is for.

Science and art are the two things that elevate us above the level of the beasts. Of the two, art is the more universal. So, whatever your favorite art form is, support it. That means actually support it with your money. And don’t begrudge the pitiful amount of funding that goes into things like the National Endowment for the Arts. It is small enough as it is.  It is only a drop in the bucket of what is needed, and you can’t calculate the value of art on a balance sheet. You can put a price on a particular piece of art, but you can’t put a price tag on the value of art to a society, any more than you can ask what is the value of religion, or your mother. Free stuff is great, but if nobody ever pays for anything, eventually, no one will have anything.


Star Liner

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