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 Art is a peculiar characteristic in human culture. It’s a part of nearly every human’s life. For some of us it’s more integral to our hearts than others, but even the artistically bereft still find ways to appreciate beautiful images, music and drama.
 The idea of art demonstrates a degree of the dichotomy in our world-view between ends and means, production and product, action and thought, heart and mind. This dichotomy is a sort of blindfold left over from Platonic thinking that separates our “temporal” and “sensational” world from that of perfect “ideals” and “ends”.
 The dichotomy expressed relating to art is that artists are seen as shady drifters that are perhaps spurred by some form of dementia. The art is what’s important, say the critics and Platonic philosophers. The artist is incidental to art, it seems. The critic would rather all of us appreciate art, and never taint our hands making it.
 John Dewey once wrote, “Since “artistic” refers primarily to the act of production and “esthetic” to that of perception and enjoyment, the absence of a term designating the two processes taken together is unfortunate.”
 In scientific regions of our culture we leave the value of ideas to “peer review” to decide what is good and what is bad. Art is a completely unscientific arena in that the critics of good and bad art are not artists. Value is purely subjective, and opinions are cultured to fit a type of snobbish value-system that reinforces the Platonic view of the world.
 I view art as nothing more than a tool of expression. If you’re idea is expressed as desired, then you have succeeded. I don’t see the art in the absolute abstract forms of random splattering of paint that may as well have come from the hysterics of a chimpanzee equipped with paint and brush. Such interpretive art masks a high degree of artistic incompetence, and the critics who esteem such art are fooling themselves.
 Art and writing are different aspects of the same thing. Part of being artistic is having a desire to express yourself. You may have no definite idea that you want to express; perhaps it is merely a desire to leave some product in this world that came entirely from you. Other times you are moved by a specific emotion that can be ground from specific events occurring in your life.
 The artist and writer have a purpose when they begin their trade. But the product they seek to produce does not often have the blessings of critics in mind. The artist sets out to express a feeling or to invoke emotions; the artist sometimes sets out to liven up an environment or to simply entertain.
Copyright © 2002 by Shawn Olson. All rights reserved. For more information about these images, Shawn Olson, or Collision Graphics, write to shawn@shawnolson.net. To return to the home page, go to www.shawnolson.net. | 
