For a major part of our lives we explore and discover. Exploration and Discovery. When we are young most of our energy and attention are spent on these activities. As we grow older it seems that we start letting other things and other people explore and make discoveries for us. And we become Consumers, where once we were Explorers and Discoverers.
Art is about exploration, discovery, beauty, intrigue, intellect, enlightenment, in short...Life. My father was a painter as was his father before him. My grandmother was a musician. What I learned from them while growing up was not anything technical, but rather an attitude...an attitude that everything is interesting, that beauty can be seen not only in external forms but also in inner workings. I learned by watching my father explore and discover. One of the things he showed me is that being an artist is about assuming a posture that encourages us to be open to exploring things on deeper levels. Being an explorer and a discoverer comes naturally to us all. Being an artist means making a conscious decision to continue to be an explorer and discoverer, even when life begins to become very conventional and set in it's ways.
Plato described beauty as being a "form" that things participate in. If we explore things, even apparently mundane things, we can discover just how they participate in the form of beauty. Through this process of exploration and discovery we become aware of our world in very different and very useful ways.
Being an artist is a personal posture, not a vocation. I've known many artists in all walks of life who would never use the word "artist" to describe themselves. But I see them as artists, individuals who have chosen to explore and discover their world, not by accident or gift, but by virtue of their own commitment.
A graphic work, such as a photograph, is a representation of one moment in time, the freezing of one view of reality showing one perspective. A piece of music is a journey. Some people see music as a depiction of something, and when one depicts something over time, motion is involved, movement; if you allow yourself to travel along, it is a journey. Some pictures...some music...some thoughts...some happy....some sad... some contemplative...some strange...some beautiful. If you are always paying attention, there are no dull moments.