I love art… a lot. I love making it and talking about it and even inspiring other people to create it. I have been teaching art classes at Cal State San Bernardino for 20 years and I always say I am the luckiest person in the world. I have the best job running around talking about art all the time, which I would totally do for free any day of the week, but they pay me to do this!
Creativity is the driving force of art and is exactly what makes me go back to it day after day after day. Creativity is not gifted inspiration from the art gods, in fact, it calls for study and effort and endless experimentation. I love you too creativity, I love pursuing you as my ever-fleeting muse.
Art feeds my hunger for human interaction, for deeper communication, for entertainment but it also speaks to me individually and makes me feel like the only soul having a moment of great connection in the universe. Art drives me to dig deeper, study more productively, listen more intently to everyone around me. Art is just that powerful.
Many will say we don’t need art. Others profess they are just as good as the expert artists themselves without training or practice or proof. Some even say art is pleasurable and therefore a waste of time and resources. How can this be? How can we live one minute in this world without the beauty of art? How can we wake up each day with purpose and joy and conviction if all we have is work and serious pursuits? Was it not Picasso who said, “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”
I especially love modern art, which in the context of my own art career is pretty weird. I used to really only love the very realistic Dutch Baroque artists, like Jan Vermeer, who focused on real form, capturing natural emotions with natural lighting for scenes from daily life.
Modern art is almost the antithesis of the Northern Baroque style. Modern art is selfish and rebellious and maybe even the step-child of the canonized art world, but my friends, that is what makes it so delicious to synthesize and digest. Modern art has a way of creeping into your psyche and never leaving. It is so powerful. Consider this colorful and expressive collage by Henri Matisse, “The Snail”. It is so rebellious, we hardly recognize the subject at all. Oh Henri, make us think! Look a little closer, enjoy the shape, the color the composition or ponder the message.
Modern art is “art for art’s sake”. What does that mean? Art that is not commissioned or custom designed by someone else. Modern art is selfishly and deliciously just about itself. Color, form, shape, artist’s intent, emotional connections and a dash of balance to unify it all . Oh selfish art, how could you be so reckless? I am not sure, but it brings me back to one undeniable truth. I love art… a lot.