Soul Food

I’m not much of an artist to tell the truth, as I’ve been told. But I don’t say this because I’m not good at painting but because it isn’t an abiding passion. It is a passion but one that flees from me while another comes in. But am I still an artist when one artful passion is temporarily replaced by another?

What is art? I think one way it can be described is creative ways we express ourselves outside of logical linear thinking. When I was young it was truly an art to apply my make up. I took time to consider tones and hues, how to make the contours I desired, how to make me more beautiful. It was art when I would make beautiful resumes for my job applications. The effort I put into its form style, font, balance, and spacing. Also the words, how I described myself, what I had done. When I described my years as a house wife with a baby I called myself a ‘domestic engineer’ and used big important words like negotiator, manager, accountant, etc. One woman thought I was employed (as if it were a real job outside of home) another waved it in her husbands face reminding him of all the things she really does. That was creative, thinking outside of my box.

Now what makes me an artist? A creative person? My current medium is the pen. Or more truly my keyboard! I am writing. May not sound impressive. I don’t seem to write very well here. But that isn’t the point. Weather I am a genius or suck doesn’t matter. The important thing is that I feed my soul. The soul’s food is art! This is art, writing. Mine may be bad art and that is ok. But unlike some people out there I am happy, content, Sometimes even blissful when I am doing and being art! I write because I love it, because it feeds my soul. NOT to please the ‘critics‘. NOT to receive the ‘critics’ approval. But only to feed my soul and that is ‘following your bliss’ my friends as Joseph Campbell was fond of saying!

What is your soul food? What feeds your soul, makes you happy, content, blissful? Do it and stop for NO ONE! No mater what they say. What do they know? We all know that ‘critics’ don’t know anything!
Now dig in!!

Art is . . .

art
–noun
1. the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.
2. the class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria; works of art collectively, as paintings, sculptures, or drawings: a museum of art; an art collection.
3. a field, genre, or category of art: Dance is an art.
4. the fine arts collectively, often excluding architecture: art and architecture.
5. any field using the skills or techniques of art: advertising art; industrial art.
6. (in printed matter) illustrative or decorative material: Is there any art with the copy for this story?
7. the principles or methods governing any craft or branch of learning: the art of baking; the art of selling.
8. the craft or trade using these principles or methods.
9. skill in conducting any human activity: a master at the art of conversation.
10. a branch of learning or university study, esp. one of the fine arts or the humanities, as music, philosophy, or literature.
11. arts,
a. (used with a singular verb) the humanities: a college of arts and sciences.
b. (used with a plural verb) liberal arts.
12. skilled workmanship, execution, or agency, as distinguished from nature.
13. trickery; cunning: glib and devious art.
14. studied action; artificiality in behavior.
15. an artifice or artful device: the innumerable arts and wiles of politics.
16. Archaic. science, learning, or scholarship.
[Origin: 1175–1225; ME < OF, acc. of ars < L ars (nom.), artem (acc.)]
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.