What is Art?

"Art is the lie that tells the truth."
-- Pablo Picasso

I heard the Picasso quote many years ago, and loved it. The phrase is, essentially, a SOUND BITE,. Picasso’s definition of art is short, concise, easy to remember, and it was made by someone generally accepted by most of the world as an authority on the subject, so, geez, what’s not to like?

I have coffee cups, and tee-shirt messages, tattoos, bumper stickers, and notebooks filled with quotations. There are millions of us that have attempted to form our philosophy of life from bumper stickers and distill our view of all facets of existence to aphorisms and clichés’

Of course the joy of an aphorism is that it can be called on in a debate, and it has been heard so often that it is often just accepted. Maxims become truth. The problem with leaning on quotable quotes is that it ends the debate, and what should have been an essay becomes 8 words accepted without analysis.

WHAT IS ART? When I look at the sound bite attempts to answer the question, I find myself simultaneously impressed and incredulous.

A picture is a poem without words.
Horace

Maybe so, since a picture is worth a thousand words.

Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.
John Ruskin

Really? If you create a work of art because you enjoy throwing a pot, or painting a canvas, and have no thoughts about reality or truth, then what are you doing?

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.
Twyla Tharp

The sense that you zone out while painting, is a sensation I experience almost daily, but is it possible people watching a football game are also running away without leaving home?

I think there is just a whole lot of BS yammering going on about art, artists, and talent.

I have two thoughts about becoming or being an artist.

FIRST: Anyone could develop an ability to draw, or paint. All it takes to draw something is to have dedicated thousands of hours of your life practicing. Author and artist Christy Brown, born with cerebral palsy, wrote a memoir entitled MY LEFT FOOT. The book was turned into a movie in 1989 directed by Jim Sheridan and starring Daniel Day-Lewis. Christy Brown had control over only one part of his body, his left foot. With that one area of bodily control he managed to write several books and paint numerous paintings. Painting a picture with your foot seems impossible, but clearly it is possible. The reason Mr. Brown could paint and type with his left foot is because he practiced. He wrote and painted every day.

There are dozens of quadriplegic artists painting amazing pictures while holding the brush in their teeth.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/quadriplegic-artist-finds-release-by-painting-with-his-mouth/1068344

http://www.allbusiness.com/education-training/students-student-life/13978670-1.html

It is not eye/hand coordination that enables you to paint, it is practice. You learn to paint by painting and you learn to write by writing, skaters learn to do the triple axis by practicing, any difficult task is learned by trying relentlessly.

I believe ANYONE without profound disabilities can become an accomplished artist. This brings me to my next thought.

TWO: One trait common to all artists is their motivated to practice. Anyone can draw if they will only try to draw a few thousand pictures within as short an amount of time as possible.

There is no secret about how to create accomplished art work. If you do anything a thousand times you will be better at it than you were on try one, or even try fifty. There is no HOW TO secret about art, but that doesn’t explain why some are artists and some are not. There is still a secret, there is still a question I can’t answer and that question is this:

WHY ARE SOME MOTIVATED? Why do some work at their art for months, and years, and for the majority of their life?

I have no answer. I know, for me, if I have family obligations, or household chores that prevent me from painting and writing for a day or so, I feel wrong. Something is off. I get nervous and fidgety. I carry a sketch journal. If I’m in a waiting room and have nothing to write or sketch in I feel like at a big event with my zipper down. Something is wrong. Something is not right. I don’t want to feel this way again. I rarely go anywhere without some outlet for my creative urge.

Why do some of us have this creative urge and why do others not have it? Maybe we all have a creative urge, but some are focused on other things. Donald Trump’s creative urge may be focused on business and sexy women with thick accents.

As a former high school teacher I figured out that teachers don’t teach anything. Teaching is not pouring knowledge into a kid’s head. All education is self-education. If you want to learn something badly enough you will learn it. The job of the teacher is not to dispense information, the job of a teacher is to motivate. If you can do something, say something, provide some activity that inspires a kid to want to learn something then they will teach themselves.

Teachers are not encyclopedias, they are cheerleaders. What goes for education goes for everything. The artist is not the one with talent, the artist is the one motivated to create art.

Hoffer said that where the development of talent is concerned, we are still at the food gathering stage. We don’t know how to grow it.