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architecture, art, arts, crafting, creat, creativity, literature, Pablo Picasso, Picasso, quotes, random, thoughts
Tomorrow I am going to grab my pad and pencils and brave the word of art. I am going to create, if good bad or absolutely ugly is yet to be seen. But I am still excited, an art-icipation flowing through my veins, hopefully getting those proverbial creative juices flowing.
So as I sharpen my pencils and dust off my sketch-book, I can’t help but wonder about what role art plays in our lives, not just for those who make, but for those who take as well.
Art seems to be what is left, when all else is gone, and it doesn’t matter if it’s words, images, sounds, crafts or architecture. The Colosseum in Rome or the Pyramids in Cairo, the pots left over from Pompeii or Faberge’s golden eggs, melodies composed by Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Bach, sonnets and stories written by Shakespeare, Wilde and Austen, are all mementos from the past, yet they still find a home in our world of today.
I read somewhere that many see creativity as the source of meaning in our lives. This doesn’t mean that if you are not creative you have no meaning, but when we create, we experience a surge of energy, a sense of purpose, fulfillment and contentment when we achieve what we set out to do. And it doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s crafting with the family, knitting a sock or painting a masterpiece.
Art is what separates us from monkeys, the way we use language to tell a tale, how we combine colour and fabrics, how we decorate our homes, own things we love but have no purpose other than just being beautiful. We value the result of an individuals creativity, a four-year-olds painting holding pride of place on the fridge, a crooked vase holding a bouquet of flowers reminding of a ten-year-olds attempt at pottery, photographs decorating our homes taken for their beauty or the memories they hold, music a constant friend (or foe) to our ears, films and plays while away our hours, gallerys, museums, monuments are places we visit, talk about and remember.
We may not always realise it, but we are surrounded by art, in one form of the other, our world filled with the results of creative thought. And it is what makes the trudge of every day life bearable, cushioning us from reality and showing us the true beauty of living. As the master Pablo Picasso said so well:
The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life of our souls
jensinewall 