We are all artists
Sending our children to a school where art is treated as important as history or english or even math was important to us. It was also a gift to out kids because unfortunately art has been cut out of so many curriculums. But the reality is although art might or might not be part of someone’s school experience, an hour or more a day, we are all artists.
Instagram has made us all photographers. Maybe that platform, surrounded with the chaos of social media, and an anxious global world, has spurred the return of art as a recreational medium.
Tie-dye is back. Pottery making is back. That physical connection to something that you create is powerful and for amateur artists it is letting their brains calm down from the insanity around them.
Growing up I tried it all. We had tie-dye birthday parties when I was 9. I sewed, crocheted, knit, embroidered, needlepointed, cooked, baked, played guitar and piano and painted my room. There was definitely an underlying stress in our house growing up so perhaps these were a way to physically calm my mind. There were drugs too but that is another story.
Art is being woven back into people’s lives in a new way but for many of the same reasons as it was in the 70’s. Shifting times.
Comments (Archived):
I don’t see this as much honestly though on its importance I couldn’t agree more.What i see is that we have transformed and benefitted greatly by the economics of software and a value system based on the scalable.And at the same time make it challenging for those people like artists to find an economic spot as by definition their craft isn’t.
Art creates empathy. Thanks for sharing your story!
One of my first businesses was doing photography (and getting paid to do so). My real business after college was based in part on what I learned doing photography. When I was featured once in a news article I set the shot up for the newspaper photographer that came to take the picture. That picture was good enough to run in syndication across the country in 20 newspapers (Knight Ridder). (Really).That said there is a difference between learning art at school and making art or doing artistic things. To do something artistic you have to be self motivated and you have to have some kind of inspiration. What you (Joanne) did in your room was almost certainly self motivated no question at all. You weren’t forced to do those things you just decided to do them. Ditto for me with photography. Ditto when I make comments here. What you wrote inspired me. It’s not required and it’s not an assignment for me. I enjoy saying things and creating things.Here is the other thing. You can’t (usually) teach creativity to someone. You can’t (in my opinion) ‘assign’ it in a classroom. I don’t have to think and I have never had to think when taking a photograph that is good enough for someone to pay me for the photo (which you could say shows something in terms of appeal). I don’t have to think (and I have never had to think nor did I have to be taught in a class) how to setup a shot so it is appealing. It just happens. It just makes sense in my brain (and always has). Even as a kid.My wife asked me to pick her up some ‘Annies Cowgirl Ranch Dressing’ at the market. I picked it up and wanted to text her back to make sure. I immediately and w/o thinking setup the picture (even if it didn’t matter; it didn’t) so it would be appealing. On the spot. It didn’t feel right just taking it another way. The right way just jumped out. The dept of field mattered (to me) even though it didn’t to my wife.I can entertain myself for hours just taking photos of ordinary objects in the world. But yet I hated art class at school and in the one photography class I took (well after taking photos and getting paid) I learned next to nothing that I hadn’t figured out already.That said art appreciation and some fundamentals can be taught. I can give examples and explain to someone why a photograph is interesting by how it’s framed. Non formally of course I have no clue if it’s what would be said by a person teaching an art class…. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
This is a great observation. I’ve been thinking of it in terms of everyone becoming a ‘maker.’ Despite its many failings, I think YouTube is responsible for a great deal of this. But it’s an overall trend to think about, especially in context with other trends like those Albert talks about.
Totally
Thanks for sharing your story. I agree creating art in any and all its manifestations is a great stress reliever!