Art history has become a huge interest of mine. Whenever I do the readings, it takes me so many hours to dive into it and try and understand it, yet it’s so fun to try and solve. My teacher is awesome and thoroughly explains everything, seriously sometimes I get chills. These ideas are so big that they’re hard to wrap your brain around, but when you get a hint and the understanding peeps through, IT IS SO COOL.
In my contemporary Art History class on Monday, we were discussing a reading called Art & Objecthood by Michael Fried. There’s one tiny part in it (that doesn’t really have to do with the theme of it at all) that he brings up the sculptor Tony Smith. Smith talks about a drive he was taking through the mountains -- an artistic experience to him. Yet, there are some artistic experiences that just don’t have form, they are not a framed painting.. Things were so beautiful to him, there was no limit to what he was seeing. There was, “No way you can frame it, [you] just have to experience it.” WHAT. YES. I thought that was so nice, because I think it’s true. Not that this part was hard to wrap my mind around – but it just hit me. And it’s so simple.
Experience is something we just know happens. It’s normal. But experiencing things and not taking them for granted I feel is hard for us to do.
I was walking on the beach last week – it’s nice having city and “beach”, listening to Van Morrison, and just looking at where I was and taking it all in. For reals in my head I said, “this is living”. But to other people, living is getting to do crazy things like sky dive or I don’t know, other big things. Which I think is true too. (And I hope to do those things!) But that day, living was having a relaxing day to myself, feeling very happy where I was. Some days you just need those revelations.
The experiences that give me these thoughts are my favorite, and they’re very rare for me. They make me realize how lucky I am, thankful I should be for what I’m doing, for how healthy I am (minus this cold I just got), and how happy I am in the big picture and shouldn’t focus so much on small things that stress me out. I just need to not think about my limits, like art can have sometimes, and just let things be, and take them in as they happen.
What’s cool to think about is how we are people, artists, just like all these famous people are too. They worked and studied, practiced and created, just as all of us can do. And maybe we can achieve their level of expertise. Their work and critiques are within us; we can have these thoughts and passions, whatever it may be. We have the ability to push ourselves to be great and experience life... We just have to put it out into the world…
