Play has a central roll in the work of making art.听 This belies the impression that serious Art is made by serious people.听 Many modern movies depict depressed alcoholic and drug addicted artists, writers and musicians that are often anti-social and reclusive, unable to connect and function in the real world.听 This may be true for the few oddities that inspire movie plots, however, there are scores and scores of us who live, love and laugh our way to art and spirit creating all along the way.听 We have somehow managed to do this and I think one key element in that is play.听 The other, less glamorous, but equally important action we take is that we work at it.听 I would like to suggest further that we play while we work and we work while we play and they become one action.听 I call it making art.听 But it is also the work and play of living.听
鈥淎rt is not apart. It is a continuum within which all participate; we all function in art, use the skills of art, and engage in the action of artists every day. (Eric Booth)
Leonard Cohen, is an icon of Canadian music, his songs been described (by those who don鈥檛 like them) as 鈥榤usic to cut your wrists by鈥�. Yet for those of us who love his work, it has the opposite effect.听 Here is a man who has experience despair and depression and has lived to sing about it and see the humour in it.听 His poetry/lyrics are rich with metaphors that play with our human failings and make fun of widely held notions of what we should be.听 I remember while working on a series of paintings called 听"Bottled"听, about the nastiness of office politics, and I was carried by Cohen鈥檚 line 鈥淭he homicidal bitchin鈥� that goes on in every kitchen, to determine who should serve and who should eat.鈥� 听These听words helped me understand听that I was not alone, that what I was observing was human behavior and that as a human, I could decide whether or not to stay in the kitchen. For me homicidal bitchin鈥� evokes images from my past in which colleagues and 鈥榣oved ones鈥� were being soundly battered with words. 听The truth behind the odd juxtapositions of Leonard鈥檚 works made me laugh then, and still makes me laugh today.听 He spoke a truth that is not often heard in a way that could be heard by others and that is Art.
Eric Booth has written a book called,.听 In it he quotes a definition of art as a verb: to put things together.听 The definitions I could find in my 奥别产蝉迟别谤鈥檚 dictionary did not include this archaic form and defined art as a noun, 鈥榯he conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the creation of aesthetic objects.鈥櫶� An Artist was defined as 鈥榦ne who professes and practices an imaginative art鈥�.听 When the parts this definition are collected together it comes out like this:听 鈥榓n Artist is one who declares and admits openly and freely and performs or works at repeatedly, an activity that requires the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality.鈥櫶� (Sounds like a mighty suspicious character to me, someone we should definitely watch out for.听 Professing and admitting and declaring鈥�) Yet it does, in a convoluted way, identify what artists do. Artists use what they know and what they intuit about the world, to create something new, it becomes 鈥榩resent to the senses鈥� only after it has been created.听 In fact it requires a leap of faith.听 Faith on many levels; in the value of the exploration, in what is being attempted, in the act of art making and faith in the importance of having a voice and a means to express it.
Corita Kent in her book 鈥� defines art - 鈥榯o create,鈥� as to put together鈥�, which is very similar to Booth鈥檚 verb for art.听 奥别产蝉迟别谤鈥檚 first definition of 'create' is 鈥榯o bring into existence鈥�, with the example of 鈥楪od created the heaven and the earth鈥�. Perhaps this is why artists are often seen as arrogant and some of us are reluctant to call ourselves artists?听 We don鈥檛 want to be accused of claiming god-like status?听 Yet, if we are created in the image of God, then why not make it our aim to create something of value; new connections; new knowledge; and thus nudge into existence new ways of being.听
If you have the joy of watching a child at play you will see that they 鈥榖ring into existence鈥� scenarios, drawings, dance and music from their imagination all the time. It happens naturally and is part of our human heritage.听 Part of the work we are here to do.听
Joanne Thomson is a full time visual artists living in Victoria BC. You can find our more about Joanne at听
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