Thursday, November 24, 2011
Sunday, November 06, 2011
Art art art art
I have to put out there that the word "art" in itself is aesthetically one of my least favorite words. It sounds like a barking seal. It's up there with "moist," "ointment," "pudding" and anything with too many "s"s as things I'd rather avoid saying.
Besides a bad word, art to me is an act of creation. Any act that puts the actor into the stream of life and consciousness and which results in a product - a movement, a photograph, a stream of consciousness, an architectural drawing. What is "bad" art and "good" art is a different dissertation and involves formal schools of study and talent and all that objective stuff. In the b'hai faith, creative acts are considered prayer because the artist is connected directly to the same source of creation as god. So if I go out with my camera and just shoot some warm-up shots with no aim or without consciousness, I'm not sure the results are art - just happenstance, just a byproduct of the mechanics.
An artist then to me is anyone who taps into the source of creativity, who creates something by design and focus and intent.
Art and creativity could play a bigger role in my life - I try to keep the source flowing by at least writing nonsense each night, but it's a challenge. I crave being part of a creative community again, such as college, where the everyday language is assumed to be in a context of artistic acts. Because I absolutely adore art and creativity - for myself, in movement, photography, writing, motherhood, and working with children (yes, there's an art!) Which makes me a practitioner of several arts... and a consumer of any arts I can get my hands on. Photography to me is unquestionably art.
Am I am artist!? All of the above said, I would shy away from the term in public because it sets an expectation - but privately yes, I believe I am an artist.
Besides a bad word, art to me is an act of creation. Any act that puts the actor into the stream of life and consciousness and which results in a product - a movement, a photograph, a stream of consciousness, an architectural drawing. What is "bad" art and "good" art is a different dissertation and involves formal schools of study and talent and all that objective stuff. In the b'hai faith, creative acts are considered prayer because the artist is connected directly to the same source of creation as god. So if I go out with my camera and just shoot some warm-up shots with no aim or without consciousness, I'm not sure the results are art - just happenstance, just a byproduct of the mechanics.
An artist then to me is anyone who taps into the source of creativity, who creates something by design and focus and intent.
Art and creativity could play a bigger role in my life - I try to keep the source flowing by at least writing nonsense each night, but it's a challenge. I crave being part of a creative community again, such as college, where the everyday language is assumed to be in a context of artistic acts. Because I absolutely adore art and creativity - for myself, in movement, photography, writing, motherhood, and working with children (yes, there's an art!) Which makes me a practitioner of several arts... and a consumer of any arts I can get my hands on. Photography to me is unquestionably art.
Am I am artist!? All of the above said, I would shy away from the term in public because it sets an expectation - but privately yes, I believe I am an artist.
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