What does the word art mean, anyway? When you hear it, do you think of a Georgia O’Keefe painting or a MIchelangelo work – something FAMOUS? Or is it more amorphous for you: the way you live your life, the design of your garden, the special furniture piece, the imported rug… something you create? Something you find?

When I applied for art school, I sent in my most prized paintings. Of my dog. My studio. My self.

When I got there, it was like walking through a maze where – one turn I got nowhere. Another, I was discovering this and then that. How to make a line create depth. How to let colors play off each other. How to engage the viewer with incompletion – that their eyes and mind would do that for you. The western tradition of perspective; the eastern tradition of moving through space. It was an exploration with no end. How to see. Really see. I LOVED it.

Because I loved it so much, I re-entered. A number of years after graduating from undergraduate, I entered graduate school, the Art Institute of Boston. I looked forward to more exploration. More “art”.

Yes. That happened. But in addition and perhaps foremost was WORDS and WRITING. It was answering why an artist did this, where that person’s art (in history) came from, how to talk about what in the world you were creating. WHAT was your art all about anyway?

Years and words later, I graduated. The faculty on my oral defense panel told me afterwards, in puzzled tones, that I hadn’t even argued about art. I was just talking about seeing. Hmmmm. It’s true, I was. I wrote about seeing light and then 2D and 3D – that Picasso only saw 2D, and what made 3D happen in art… It was fascinating to me.

And I was done school. YAY! As a way to celebrate – or comment – that summer I made my first pillow art, painting on silk.

The front of the pillow:

the back:

After all is SAID and done, time to rest.

In retrospect, I loved graduate art school. If anything, it made me question – the definition of art. Especially my work, which is inspired by Japanese, Indonesian and Eastern tradition and wanders from framed wall pieces to window hangings to … restful decor.

So, yes, what is art? What is it? Or, asked a different way: what, in life, is NOT some version of “it” with all the unfolding as you explore behind it?

(and then there’s Peaches: “Heat.”)

and “Whew!

I put that behind me.”