“I don’t call myself an artist, but I make art my life. Art is a creative act, infused with intention, that speaks to beauty and displays imagination. That said, it is impossible to define art. Art is always changing, evolving, growing, and there are innumerable ways to express ourselves creatively.
I like to think that there is an art to living, that we can live in such a way as to make our lives artful. This is about living with intention, creatively. Art is not always beautiful, but it often speaks to beauty, or rather, our expressions of beauty, because beauty is inspiring. To say a life is art is not to say it is perfect or beautiful, but to say that it is created with intention, in dialogue with the concept of beauty.
Life is creative in every sense of the word. To create is to make something material or immaterial that is new. With every action, every idea, we create our circumstance, chart our future. Through our connections with others we create and evolve together.
We can choose to live artfully, as though our lives are our art, meaning to live with creative intention. This is how I approach life and conceive of art. Life is art. It is our greatest work and most lasting impression.“
— an excerpt from “Art, Life and Creative Intention,” The Maker’s Post, Volume 3
Last summer I was asked to contribute to a journal called The Maker’s Post. A beautiful print volume sharing the stories of artists, makers and creatives across diverse disciplines from furniture making, to pottery, food styling, fashion design, culinary arts and more. To say I was dumbfounded by the request would be an understatement. I don’t consider myself an artist, a maker or creative. I mean, I do make things, I do create, and, art is a big part of my life, but the title ‘Artist’ has never felt accurate. And yet, a life of intentional creativity is what I strive for on a daily basis. I decided to explore this idea and the notion of living artfully and submitted my work to the journal.
To my delight, the issue was published in late in 2016 and is now available for purchase — and it includes my submission! The journal is available in print (for order and shipped to your home or found in select stores in USA) or digitally. Please visit their site to get your copy and support their work. You can also find them on Instagram @themakerspost.
If you aren’t sure yet, here are a few more excerpts from my piece:
“Life isn’t always beautiful, it’s most often imperfect, frequently a struggle. I find comfort and optimism in recognizing the small, but significant, beauties in my day. For me, I most often see this in my children, in their sense of wonder, imagination and naivete, but I also see it in the beauty of the natural world. I decidedly try not to seek beauty, but to recognize the beauty that surrounds me. Seeing, appreciating and recording the beauty of ordinary, everyday moments. Through documenting the plain sight beauty of things my creative intention is to offer a simple, but optimistic, view of the mundane. A life of beauty is available to us.
I am often criticized for capturing only the beautiful moments in my day. As though this is a deception. I disagree. Documenting the beauty that many people do not see is how I create with intention. It is a message about observation, simplicity, gratitude, and small joys.
Artful living: to ‘do art,’ or to ‘live art’, is an embodied way of engaging the world. It is an acceptance, and even a celebration, that we are embedded and connected in important ways. How we live matters in very real and fundamental ways. What we create, whether material or immaterial, matters. My creative intention is to communicate gratitude for life as it is. Striving and struggle only create conflict; gratitude instills peace.”
In Volume 3, you will also find over 20 articles and interviews to inspire your creativity and passion for the arts and life.
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