About Lumps And Empires – What is "Art" and how important is it really, for the individual as well as society?
About Lumps And Empires – What is "Art" and how important is it really, for the individual as well as society?
My son loves watching Great Courses, he's a history buff. So, he "makes" me watch the lectures with him. Currently we're watching a lecture on the different empires throughout our history. In one of the episodes the lecturer made a very interesting statement that has been going through my mind since. He said that what they found was that as many empires started to decline, the quality and degree of artistry applied to pottery went down simultaneously. Some reverted so far back that it resembled stuff you would have expected from around the stone age - lumpy, basic, plain. I think art (in its various forms) plays a crucial part in our society and is a gauge as to the state and health of the individual and the group as a whole. I think for me personally, art is about connection (that's what drives my art and writing).
But let's start with a definition.
What is art?
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines art as: “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects.” The dictionary also defines a work of art as something that is “produced as an artistic effort or for decorative purposes.”
I don’t know if I fully agree with that. If anything, I feel it’s only half-way there. What we can all perhaps agree on I think is that we tend to associate art with creativity and the two seem to cross streams quite a bit making it near impossible to draw a distinct line. When does creation turn to “art?” Or does creation equal art, especially considering how subjective it is?
Since childhood, my life has always been full of art (as society would define it). My mother loved art and took a distance course (back then you had to interact with your instructor via snail mail!) and I was also a bookworm and loved writing my own little stories once I learned how to put a sentence together. But I remember even then and all the way up to college in the late 1990’s, there was still a notion as to what constituted art and what didn’t. There was a lot of opinion and judgment going around and I’ll admit that for the longest time I judged art on skill (or what I felt demonstrated “skill”). All this changed, and I think having two kids on the autism spectrum was a huge part of this.
Both my kids have always loved art. The two have VERY different styles however. Both display a touch of anime, but one goes into realism and serious subject matter, while the other one goes with simple, bright, goofy, and cute. My daughter kept criticizing herself and comparing her art to her brother’s because his was so much more realistic, which she defined as more skilled, thus the better art. As a mom I was really disturbed by this because I had witnessed how BOTH had poured their energy into their work and had each spent a lot of time perfecting their specific style. How could one be less than the other?! I kept in mind my own motherly bias, but this was getting to me as an artist as well. At the time, my daughter loved reading the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” books and I had sort of an epiphany. I used it to show my daughter that her art was no less than any other art because realism or complexity were not necessarily what made a work appealing/successful. I explained that A LOT of people were drawn to the stick figure approach of the books, but they weren’t just stick figures. They had character, personality and fed directly into the text, making the whole thing a fun experience. Clearly, great care and consideration went into both - the text and the artwork, and how the two complement one another. Most likely, the books wouldn’t work like they do had the artwork been a lot more realistic or had the stick figures lacked character. This made sense to my daughter… and to myself as well. What exactly it was then that defined art as ART, I couldn’t quite answer at the time, but my daughter continued with her art feeling a whole lot better about herself.
While the degree of someone’s skill can certainly be impressive, art, I realized, was not about skill alone - “skill” being a relative idea to begin with. Or perhaps the bigger problem is that we have an unclear definition of what the word “skill” really means because we tend to want to compare.
What is Skill?
Good old Miriam Webster defines skill as: “the ability to use one's knowledge effectively and readily in execution or performance.”
Hmm, okay… I’m an illustrator. Drawing the human figure is second nature to me. It doesn’t require much thought or effort - I’ve done it so much. If you asked me to draw a figure, I could do it in seconds. A person might be impressed by my technical skill but I would personally not consider it “art work” of mine. I have not tuned into this figure on the page. Who is she? What’s her ethnicity? Age? Shape? What’s her story? What does she like/dislike? The moment I start thinking about these things, “digest” them, and then USE my skills in order to express the relationship I’m forming with this character, the picture changes completely. What would people gravitate toward? My “technical” sketch or the one I formed a relationship with? Both are creative expressions/creations and therefore technically art, BUT one was elevated. Sure, through the use of my skill but I wouldn’t have been able to apply that skill without forming a relationship with my subject. Whether I’m drawing something from life or from my imagination, by connecting with my subject I am able to elaborate. I connect with the subject and gather information which I then integrate and express via the medium of my choice.
Art → Connection → Integration → Creation
The moment we get out of bed in the morning, we are consciously (and subconsciously) creating as we are interacting with our surroundings. From brushing our teeth to cooking dinner. But obviously we don’t view all of these creations as art. It’s because of the level of connection and intent. When I tie my shoes, I do it mechanically and out of habit because I have made a choice that this is an aspect of my life I don’t want to commit much energy and time to. I COULD make an artform out of tying my shoes, tune in and get to know my laces I guess, push myself and come up with fancy patterns and knots… and someone would probably eventually notice, too! But if we did that with everything we create on a daily basis, we’d never make it out of the house! So, we make choices as to where to focus our energy specifically, and those things will naturally have a higher degree of connection… and those are the things with the highest potential of being viewed as “art” (by ourselves and others). The energy that went into those things is a lot more palpable. But essentially, EVERYTHING is art and everyone IS an artist. A mother, teacher, mechanic, yogi, software developer, or salesperson can be an artist in their specific field, just like a painter. What distinguishes “art” from “just” creation is the level of connection it received from its creator. That level or degree of connection can’t be measured. It’s something we all feel and experience differently, which is why it’s so difficult to define it.
Art is about your full attention and presence, and because of that it’s also near impossible to feel lonely in those moments because you are connected to yourself, something or someone! You could even write a poem about loneliness that brings you to tears, but are you crying because you’re lonely or because you’re so in tune at that moment that you’re utterly empathetic toward the experience of the state of loneliness? Two different things. That’s also why we need to push ourselves as artists because as we perfect a skill or technique, it becomes easier and even automatic. This is when we start losing connection. We drift into auto-pilot. The brain is literally built this way in an effort to optimize and evolve. We actually gradually lose the “art” part bit by bit, which is why art is fluid and the way we “judge” it changes over time. It requires continuous evolution of some kind for the purpose of (re)connection. Maybe you’ve asked yourself before “WHY do we make art?” People have various reasons on the surface, but at the core I think is the desire to feel alive. Auto-pilot is like zombie mode - it’s not living. Art is the spark that zaps us out of that mode and makes life worth living. And there’s also a difference between being “in the zone” or in your “zen space” and auto-pilot/zombie-mode. One is perfect flow due to harmonic integration, the other is your brain registering a repetitive element as learned and no longer in need of direct focus. It’s like drifting off thinking about your grocery list while reading a book and then suddenly you’re at the end of the page and have no clue what you just read. You’ve mastered the skill of reading but you did not stay connected to the text - auto-pilot.
Here is where in our current culture we can observe a breakdown and/or controversy with the rise of things like AI and pre-built templates. That’s why mass produced things are not as special as hand-crafted things. While mass produced things are still “created” and in that sense classify as art, the degree of connection/impact is reduced because we know the “thing” didn’t get much attention. We can literally feel the love that went into something.
Art → Connection → Integration → Creation → Love
Expanding your art can mean many things, like adding tools, exploring skills, styles, perspective, themes, or trying to reach more people. Intention is part of art but it’s not what defines it AS art. Whether my intention is to make art to find my own personal zen, or to give as a gift to my brother, or to make a lot of money, ALL three examples ARE creations and therefore art. But the degrees of connection each form received may differ and therefore the result you were hoping for may also differ and be more or less effective/satisfying. If I’m working on my zen garden but I’m on auto-pilot, I’m not going to come out of that feeling relaxed, fulfilled, self-centered. If I make a movie and rush through it and cut corners because my focus is on profit, chances are I’ll see it in the reviews and the profits will drop as a result. There’s nothing wrong with making art and earning money from it. What matters is if you went on auto-pilot in the process or not. This is the bane of most artists who make their art their career and their sole income. Art takes time because of the connection you have to achieve. This time you spend is often not paid like with many other jobs. So how can you survive AND commit fully to your art? That’s something I’ll cover in another discussion (!!), but the point here is you won’t get very far without sooner than later hitting a wall (whatever your intention and reason may be) unless you connect.
Social media content creators are figuring out that it’s not about the amount of content they push out that creates and RETAINS followers but rather how well they connect with their followers. And in order to connect you have to be engaged and present. Just creating content for content and volume sake is, again, going on auto-pilot.
When your job, career, workshop, creative outlet (like a group or social media platform) or even personal relationship, like marriage no longer inspires you, chances are you’ve gone on auto-pilot because you’ve run out of ways to connect. This is often due to lack of meaningful and/or more challenging “projects,” not to put blame on outside forces alone because the responsibility to grow is on YOURSELF and there are literally infinite ways to achieve this. I think the biggest challenge of all is to connect, integrate, and create the self! None of us should EVER feel bored! At the same time, because something now comes “easy” to you (hence the auto-pilot) does not necessarily imply things have to get harder to (re)connect, but something definitely needs to move “somewhere.” That’s why prolonged repetitive work is physically and mentally very unhealthy. Imagine you just spent 8 hours on auto-pilot at work. You come home, exhausted, sit down in front of the TV to unwind, etc. You’ve just spent the majority of your day very little or completely dis-connected. And we wonder why so many people on this planet suffer from depression and loneliness.
Art = Love
My definition of art: To continuously connect with and integrate that which was previously apart from me.
My definition of love: To continuously connect with and integrate that which was previously apart from me.
Art, like love, is constantly a work in progress. The moment you go on auto-pilot, while you’re still a “creator” and therefore an artist, you will be disconnected from yourself, others, and “the thing” itself. This is when pottery turns to sad lumps and empires fall.
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