"A book must be an axe for the frozen sea inside of us" - Franz Kafka
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[/caption] What distinguishes art from common place objects is its profound ability to inspire a wide variety of deep emotional responses and intellectual stimulation unique to each viewer or participant. I believe, as Kafka points out for us, that art should be a tool for personal growth through stimulation and confrontation for both creator and participant alike. Art can move us in ways everyday life cannot; art can force us to ponder questions we never knew we should be asking.
The pursuit of the artist is one of seemingly contradictory goals: to explore ideas or emotions deeply personal and specific for the purpose of personal growth through either discovery, acceptance or catharsis; while at the same time, making the result of that search widely available and, to varying degrees, open to interpretation by the outside world. In sharing works of art the author is not just revealing the result of his study but also inviting the audience to participate in their own quest, to explore the same mystery and corroborate their results with the artist's work. A finished work of art should never be an ending but a new beginning; participants should walk away from art with more questions than answers, and perhaps a new understanding or perspective.
"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom" - Albert Einstein
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[/caption] Buddhists believe that ultimate freedom is nirvana, a state of being in which the self ceases to exist and truth is felt and experienced, the truth that all is one, all is the same; this truth is felt but not known, experienced but not thought. Some Buddhists would tell you that art is distraction from suffering, that art is false experience, but I believe art, in both creation and experience, is equal to meditation, a tool to achieve a state of mindfulness and the path to nirvana.
To experience the disconnect between mind and body while experiencing art, detaching even sometimes from one's self to let the art wash over and consume your being. To lose yourself in creating your own artwork, reaching that moment when instinct and intuition takes over and active thought no longer plays a role in the process of creation, to the point that time ceases to be experienced and you look up surprised that the past few minutes you've been working have been hours. Art is a separate realm of experience. Art is another dimension. Art is a collective transcendental collaboration bound not to form or space or time.
Art is evolution.
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