Art (Or Something Like It)

What is “art”? What about that simple, 3-letter word sets so many people on the defensive? Further, why do we spin ourselves in circles trying to define what something so wonderfully vague is?

One of the biggest struggles I have in what I’m employed to do is to connect the vagueries of science, research, and technology into the specific and tangible. For all the cutting-edge science we read and hear about in our various news sources, there’s the reality that most of these things don’t exist in the world in any meaningful way, shape, or form. It becomes a battle to explain how Technology XYZ can benefit the masses when, in actuality, the outputs of that technology are unknown.

This type of conjecture and rationalizing does lead to the inevitable Luddites and deniers. These folks, who readily accept the use of adjacent technologies and modern conveniences, will decry the edges of an innovation that seems to smack of the unknown, the untested, and the untrue. My job is to use facts to confront fear, an artist’s output to tell a larger story.

I’m not always successful. Some technologies don’t find ready analogues in the living, breathing space of the real world. Some innovations don’t lend themselves to the straightforward narratives of social change, medical discoveries, or meaningful contributions to business. Some are milestones on the way to overcoming roadblocks to more significant, human or technology-centric problems.

Have you ever stood in front of a painting in one of the many fantastic art museums around the world and paused to listen to the conversations around you? Do you notice how we tend to tell stories about what we believe to be the truth, about how the artist juxtaposed light and darkness, death and life, colour and texture? It’s quite an exciting set of stories to overhear because each, in their own way, is attempting to describe an outcome. Each is trying to frame in their worldview what an artist, sometimes hundreds of years removed from that moment, is trying to communicate and convey. From brushstroke to palette, from frame to figure, we’re interested in the ultimate conveyance of meaning from them to us.

Sometimes, we attempt to align our histories and stories into this existential narrative. We identify with the coy smile of the Mona Lisa, understanding her to be thinking of something that the artist may not know. Perhaps the consideration of what she ate that morning, her lover’s arms, the gentle play of light on her skin. Or, perhaps, we imagine ourselves skirting the shores of Monet’s Water Lily Pond, staring intently at the crystalline waters, the reflections shattering through the fabric of our parasols, dancing across our skin. In each case, we’re interpreting a moment, captured in time, that enjoins a larger story of humanity.

So what, then, is “art”?

I’d suggest that art is where you find yourself, no more, no less.

Art is as much the sun streaming through your window onto the black plastic of your keyboard keys as it is the tender words of affirmation printed between the covers of Tyler Knott Gregson’s “Poems from the Typewriter Series.” Art is as much the clamour and clutter of a life lived in remote work as it is in the kicking and farting joys of foals at play. It’s found in the remote fields of Iceland as much as on the street corners of your local town, village, and city.

Art, for as much as we desire a solid definition, has never been something to be grasped ahold of or narrowly defined. It’s never been more than a fleeting mist, a wisp of inspiration, a breath of spirit, an in-dwelling and outpouring of humanity. It’s as complex as 0s and 1s from the hive-mind of algorithms prompted by the collective human experience and as simple as the smears of paint from baby and beast alike.

I’m sure I’ve touched off a religious war here for no other reason than the fact that it’s a Wednesday, and I’m experiencing a drought of warm weather here in Boston. But, for all I write here, I’m simply providing another thread, worldview, and experience to add to the tapestry of humanity and art.

Today, I hope you find your art, your story to tell and express, and the meaningfulness of creation and conveyance.

May it ever be (artfully) so.