I know this sounds like a cop-out, but I'm writing about a painting I'm painting right now. It's influenced by social events, because it is a reaction to present-day social events. I feel, as one human individual, that I do not have any power in the grand scheme of things, and I am incredibly disinterested in the fighting going on in a country I have never even visited. 

I feel that I don't have enough information about our present activities in the theaters of war we have gotten ourselves into to make any firm opinion on whether I am for this action or against, so I claim: indifference to it all! Ha! So I've started the most absurd painting I could ever concoct: 

I'm painting a painting, or rather, letters, on a canvas, with paint - about 1500 letters total. The letters will form sentences, the sentences, paragraphs. Those will then turn into the first few paragraphs of "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac. Now, since I'm a crafty fellow, I'm coloring these letters in such a way that they will make up an image of the face of Jack Kerouac when they are all laid down. I'm painting these letters a completely random style. I've already put down hundreds of letters and I have no idea if the text is going to read like I want, or make the portrait! It's absolutely absurd and is my reaction to what I see and hear around me. 

My idea isn't new at all, one has to only look to the Zurich Dadaists, who, during the First World War, created nonsense poems and plays, painted paintings made by tracing dropped, cutout pieces of paper, and wrote cut-and-paste poetry, to see that absurdity is a natural reaction to, well, absurd actions around you. 

Another example of this would be the entire movement of Minimalism, done during the Vietnam war. These punks would paint, say, a board, in one color and lean in up against a gallery wall. Ta-da! F*ckin' art!. Or better yet, take a blank canvas, throw it on the floor of a gallery. What a statement...of absurdity. Part of their thinking was, "All purchases in the US are taxed; taxes go to support the war. I'll do art with as little bought materials as possible." Other people just used found junk. 

So, my absurd painting is just an extension of a grand tradition. An artist's job is to reflect the world around them in a new way. It's the artist who is hyper-sensitive to the world, and who is needed to make sense of it. The problem is the fact that the artist isn't seen as this mystic seer, but is seen as just a little weird, a little crazy. Meanwhile, the artists just shake their head and give up trying to teach the stupid.