conspiracies

Conspiracies are like stories. They grow.

Urban myths and myths generally have a life of their own,

They pass through different people's minds, each one having a different take on them, until they pass out of all recognition.

I had an idea as a painter that you could describe art like that.

The creation of something independent in your own name, 

Becomes a sort of goal for the artist, his or her driving force.

When that piece of work takes in a life of its own, 

It changes the author or painter from playing god

To becoming a god maker.

You get paintings like that. Munch's The Scream,

Or the Sunflowers by Van Gogh,

Or the Mona Lisa, and literature, 

Like The Christmas Carol, 

The continuation of an idea until it becomes alive

Of course is the basis for works like The Picture of Dorian Grey.

It's also problematic, because that sort of creation makes the appalling mess of 

Social government, when bad ideas are followed through

until they become redolent of the all consuming horror that they always were,

but on an epic scale, like today's society.