On Definitions

Bringing together the definitions for my book on Textures Techniques has gotten me thinking on the ‘definition’ of art.

No matter how we try to describe each technique as accurately as possible, there is something missing from our detailed descriptions. Something essential that the artists themselves bring to the table that remains outside of our best efforts to describe.

The birth of a piece is not the sum of the techniques that the artist used to create it. It is not a recipe : add a dash of reverse appliqué, a teaspoon of oil painting, a tablespoon of Tsukineko, a cup of embellishments – mix in a blender at high speed and voila! You have ‘art’!

It is the unique patterns of thought, personality and experience that the artist (and the viewers) bring to the piece which help it become more than a pleasing assembly of color and form and become a way to communicate, to share the way we see/sense/feel the world in, outside and around us.

But how can we define these unique patterns? Even in repetition they change and evolve, react to and shape their context. Even as they echo each other, they are as different and varied as fractals, as the DNA that shapes us all, yet makes us all strikingly unique. There will never be another you, and no one else will ever make the art that comes from the inner workings of your soul in your place in time.

Anyway- I’d better get back to work!

Helene