There is not much I can say about the impact of David Bowie’s life on the music, art, and fashion worlds as most of it has already been said in the wake of his passing. I can share my personal experience of what he meant to me as a musician, a writer, and a person with artistic and quirky tendencies though.
I started listening to David Bowie’s music when I was nine years old. It was before the days where you could Google an artist or follow them on the web and social media to find out everything you wanted to about them, whether truthful, exaggerated, or just plain wrong. I will even admit to watching Labyrinth more than once, entranced by everything about his presence. He created what he wanted. He dressed how he wanted. He acted how he wanted. To me, he did this in a bubble with little regard for convention or social norms. He was a hero to me not for his art, although I loved it, but rather for his passion and unique presence. He was not afraid to be who he was at a moment in time, and he rocked it.
I had insomnia when I picked up my phone to find David Bowie had left us. I had just listened to his new album on its release day and thought it was a beautiful, melancholy masterpiece, and I wondered who he was at this moment in time to make such an album. I now understand. He was the David Bowie about to leave us, and he was fully in charge of how he would do so even in the face of an unpredictable disease. His death was almost one year to the day I spent perusing the masterfully prepared art exhibit called David Bowie Is in Chicago on its last stop and last weekend before leaving the United States. This timing was not lost on me.
In mourning someone I have never met, I have learned Sir Bowie was not just an a person to me. He was an idea I could define myself, break convention, and determine a direction which was not in line with current practices or fads. David Bowie was living art recreating itself on the fly. He was change. He was color. Most importantly, he was an inspiration to many such as me who never quite fit in with the rest. He was an inspiration to not care about being a piece of the puzzle. Rather, he was the inspiration to create the puzzle and determine how you fit within your creation. As a result, I find myself today peacefully standing out from the herd, and this fuels my creation of novels, music, and fashion which often delightfully stand out from the rest. I don’t do it for fame or money. I do it for the love of it much like I believe David Bowie did, and I will continue to do so in his honor. David Bowie Is Art.
Kelly Rogers 