This question was posed at the recent MakeWork Sustainability session last Saturday. It's one of those questions that as an educator I should have a pocket answer for, but in reality is much more difficult to answer. The questions is really about justifying arts existence. Why, particularly in the visual arts, is time and money spent on something that few will see and even fewer will understand?

Art is difficult to define. It's this other thing, it's intangible, or as Cai Guo-Qiang put it in the video series Art21, "it's the things we don't see." On a personal level, the visual arts have become an act of expression that for me have moved past the traditional boundaries of media such as painting or sculpture. It's become this mix of media that allow artists, both visual and performing, to move effortlessly between various media. This freedom in an artists choice of media also exists in an artists choice of message. This unrestrcited freedom is why I am personally drawn to create. Through art I am allowed to express ideas and create works that could not exist elsewhere. I think most people have a desire to create, but it's through art that this freedom is cultured. Art allows us to express ideas and emotions that cannot be expressed through other means. Art has the unique ability to on one hand inspire and on the other outrage it's audience.

Why does art matter? It matters because we need it. It exists as a snapshot of the cultural, religious, secular, political, social, moral, sexual bents that define us at a particular moment in time. Creative expression is the foundation and very essence of a diverse cultural experience.

Labels: CreateHere, F.A.M.P., MakeWork, mark mcleod, sculpture