I come back a lot to the idea of “what makes me come alive?” In fact, I extend the question to others and try to see if there are ways to make others come alive too. I like to call this “alive-ness” because it’s not about merely living. In American Gods, Laura explains to her husband “You’re not dead…But I’m not sure you’re alive, either. Not really.” This is the reality of today. We frequently go through the motions of the living, but there’s no spark in our day to day actions that implies being alive.
Reading Art & Fear has shaped the way I’ve defined art. To me, art is the distillation of life. Art is one part of noticing what you notice, and one part of expressing what you notice. Noticing something is about coming alive to the world. Coming alive to the world is about starting to become an active participant in life rather than passively going through the motions. It is “alive-ness” and attempting to trigger “alive-ness” in others.
To see things is to enhance your sense of wonder both for the singular pattern of your own experience, and for the meta-patterns that shape all experience. All this suggests a useful working approach to making art: notice the objects you notice.
—Art & Fear
