Tuesday, August 2, 2011

In the Eye of the Beholder


Art. It's a funny thing isn't it?

When we drove through Nashville a couple of weeks ago, we went inside a Starbucks in Downtown Nashville. I'm not certain, but I think ti was definitely the historic part of Nashville....but each of us picked our poison and then climbed the stairs to the sitting area where we found some really neat displays of art from local artists. One piece was on a vertically oriented rectangular canvas. The background was gray and on that gray background were painted three squares. Kaitlyn and I stood there looking at the piece. She looked at me and said, "Really? It's just squares! I could do THAT!" I recall thinking the same thing .... that I could do it, too! Then we looked at the four-digit price tag.

I stood there looking at it some more and realized that when I create my own art, there is usually some reason. A reason for the alignments, a reason for the colors, a reason for the texture... In my own art, I like to include the number five somehow. My children all know why five is significant. I asked myself if there was some kind of hidden communication in this piece that included three squares. Kaitlyn was certain the whole piece was "just random" but I was sure there was a bit of color theory blended into the piece and the squares were aligned neatly within one another....but not so perfectly placed on the canvas.

To some who view art, it probably is just random and crazy. For others, there is a communication. I hope for that artist someone understands the message that was being communicated and is willing to hand over their plastic money for it to hang it in their office. I hope that because I like to hear of successful artists.

I plan to be one soon!