My Life as Art

I am interested in art as a means of living a life; not as a means of making a living. – Robert Henri

If art to me is a means of living my life, it must be woven into the fabric of who I am. And I find art in far more than wielding brush and pigment for an hour or two a week.

I found this definition of art online, and I think it fits the quote above:

art: the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

I want my life to be art. What is more moving, significant and profound than living one’s days in awareness of beauty, in making significant the insignificant? What is more appealing than expressing love, in giving, in selfless concern for another?

I've started a scrapbooking project, and don't plan any paintings until the task is completed. I'm thankful for the break, actually, though my mind churns with plans for my next masterpiece. But when I am painting, I am alone, absorbed by a discipline that I cannot share. Today, my four-year-old daughter sat across the table from me, helping me glue and snip and it was a sweet hour of exchange. The photographs we held glowed with the smiles of two years’ worth of family life and love, and, after my recent struggles to appreciate my family (seeming always underfoot, always needy), I needed this reminder of what is important and what will last. My paintings will be around after I am gone, but they will not last as long as the eternal souls of those I love (and those I am learning to love).

One last link...to an article that moved me this week...appropriate for those seeking to prioritize better in this new year, as I am.