In today's unique episode, I have compiled some of our more recent guests' answers to the question, "What is art to you?" This delightful compilation brings a plethora of unique, honest, and inspiring answers to that question, and I'm excited to share part two of this series with you today. Enjoy! 

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Episode 76 - "What is Art to You?" - Part 2

[00:00:00] Lindsey Dinneen: Hello and welcome to Artfully Told, where we share true stories about meaningful encounters with art.

[00:00:06] Krista: "I think artists help people have different perspectives on every aspect of life."

[00:00:12] Roman: "All I can do is put my heart in to the world."

[00:00:15] Elizabeth: "It doesn't have to be perfect the first time. It doesn't have to be perfect ever, really. I mean, as long as you, you're enjoying doing it and you're trying your best, that can be good enough."

[00:00:23] Elna: "Art is something that you can experience with your senses and that you just experience as so beautiful."

[00:00:31] Lindsey Dinneen: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Artfully Told. I'm your host Lindsey and today I have a very unique episode that I'm really excited to share with you. It is a compilation of the different, amazing answers I've received over the last year and some change to the question, "What is art to you?" I love asking this question, because the answers I get are always so diverse and beautiful and unique and challenging. And I just can't wait to share the insights that I've gathered over the year with you. So enjoy and I'll catch you next time.

[00:01:14] Mike Huerter: Well, you know, art takes many forms: dance, acting, obviously drawing, painting. So I mean, for me, I think I probably gravitate more towards the acting, dancing role of art then, but that doesn't take away anything from any other art form, by any means, you know, musicians and all that. My sons and daughters are very musical. I love music. I, I wish I could play it, but I can't. So I'm in total admiration of people who can. I mean, it's such a gift that they can just-- my son's trying to, you know, he was trying to teach us to harmonize some time. They say, "Dad, it's right there in front of you." And it's like, "No, you don't understand. It's not right there in front of me. It might be for you." 'Cause he's got that ability where he can just pick out notes and play them, that kind of thing. So this would be a very sad world that any form of art . I think art-- it saddened me to see you know, some schools, they, it's not very high on their priority list. I think it's a great outlet for people to express their feelings as things that are going on, maybe emotionally in their lives. It's a great outlet for them, for them to, to bring that out without actually, without actually having to sit down and talk to somebody about it. I mean, they can express it in whatever form they want to. And it's, I think art's more for us, you know, the people are performing it than it is for the people that we're actually presenting it to.

[00:02:38] Gregg Gonzales: I think art to me is about self-expression in its truest form. That's why I think about the work that I do with my authors. They, they don't think about, about it as writing, but if you're speaking it, you're expressing yourself. You know it, to me, it's no different than if you were to sit at a computer and write, or pull out a pen and write in a journal just as the same way, you know, traditional authors do it. It's no different than someone sculpting a piece of raw clay into something beautiful, or a painter taking a blank canvas and creating something from their own self expression. So to me, art is the ultimate form of self-expression.

[00:03:21] Jami Robben: I would say art is just anything that expresses someone and it doesn't take any sort of level of talent or anything like that. It just is something that you express yourself with and it makes you happy. And it's something you're able to share with others and make them happy with it too.

[00:03:40] JaJa Smith: Art is expression. Art is a hundred percent expression. You know, whether you are a painter or you are a, a sketch artist or a actor, or whatever your canvas is, it's this release of energy. Some people don't know how to articulate themselves. So for them to be able to have this outlet, it's this beautiful thing. And then when it comes out, sometimes it's angry. Sometimes it's heartbroken. I remember very vividly my dad passed away on the night of an acting class, but I had to go because I didn't know how to handle my emotions outside of that. And you know, my, my acting class is my family, but I just needed that, that outlet, you know, it was just one of those things. It's like air almost. I think for a lot of other artists out there, I think art is their microphone to tell the world how they really feel, and in the way that best articulates it for them.

[00:04:44] Darnell Benjamin: I guess the best way I would describe art--art is perspective. Art is when someone shares their perspective through a specific medium whether that be film, theater, dance , visual , music. I mean, the list goes on. It's perspective. I think art is a person's perspective through a medium. I know that sounds very simple, but I think that that's, that's how I would define what art is.

[00:05:16] Emily Moores: I know maybe this isn't like the right answer, but I actually don't really worry about defining art because I think there's a lot of people who push, you know, especially when you think about like the past. A hundred years where people are like doing social practices, art, or they're switching into doing installations and all of these norms were broken, but they're still really meaningful ways of engagement. Sometimes I think if we get too caught up in trying to define something, then we can lose our ability to be open. And, and so I'm not-- I guess I'm not as concerned with having a definition. I know for me, I definitely practice within like the realm of installation and within, you know, making wall works. You know, like maybe I'll go back to making paintings or drawings, but like if I were to walk into a gallery and there's like a performance and it's mostly dance, I don't feel like I wouldn't necessarily want to adhere to a definition.

[00:06:20] Harlem Lennox: So to me, art can be just about anything. I don't like telling people like, "Oh, that painting -- that's not art. That will never be art." I look at art from a very broad sense where people will probably be like, "Well, then nothing is art if everything is art." But I look at, so for example, my daughter can make something, or my son, or my other son can make something, and I will look at it as art and I will seriously react to it the same way I would react to it if somebody showed me any piece of art. I look at nature as a form of art. The way that each tree is beautifully unique. And I have an obsession with trees and the way each tree is beautifully unique. And the simple fact that there's all these different changes and stuff like that within the universe.

[00:07:26] And so, 'cause I was actually thinking to myself last night, like even after-- you know, this is so morbid, but even after we're all gone and maybe, you know, like the dinosaurs, humans are no longer on the earth or whatever-- like the world, the earth is still going to be making art. I look at a lot of different things as art and I define art is anything that gives a person meaning. If you can look at it and feel something within yourself, within your soul deeply. It doesn't matter what it is, whether it's a positive or negative feeling, if you can feel something and it makes you think, then I consider it as art.

[00:08:12] Christina Stanton: So I think art helps us understand and appreciate and navigate life. I mean, it is life, but art bleeds over into every section of our lives and it just helps us through life. And you know, personally ,the most joy and love and sadness, the strongest emotions I feel, is through art. I'm pretty straight as an arrow and and other places in my life. But nothing makes me feel the human experience more than art does.

[00:08:50] Jeffrey Holst: So for me, art is, is any kind of creative endeavor that's that allows the creator to express themselves.

[00:09:00] Lucas Zellers: So for a while, I tried to come up with, with my own definition of this and I was sort of laboring under the impression that a definition that I hadn't written wasn't authentic. But I found one that I really liked. Elaine de Baton wrote this in his book," The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work." He said, "art is anything that points our thoughts in important yet neglected directions."

[00:09:25] Kristin Beale: Ooh, so I define art as an outlet because that's what it is to me. It started as an outlet. And so now , it's turning into an outlet for me when I got hurt and all this stuff. And now it's an outlet for my creativity and for my humor and for my personality. Whereas before it was an outlet for my frustration. I mean, at times it still is not for my frustration, but an outlet for my frustration and my new experiences and kind of digesting the world around me. So it looks like for me, it looks like, you know, real life experiences are relatable things or just things that will make you laugh or things that's a way to entertain people. Yeah, so an outlet for my creativity.

[00:10:05] Doug Motel: I think that art is when you actively step into creation and extend that, whatever, you know, whatever it is that created us has, I believe that whatever it is that created us has endowed us with the very same abilities, which is to create. And whenever you step into that and make a choice to create you are partaking in art. You are making art.

[00:10:37] Gloria Grace Rand: Art, art to me is expression. And it, because it can have so many different forms and, and I think it is, it's a way of expressing who you are, what your thoughts and beliefs are and it's a way of being able to just communicate you through whatever different modality you find, whether that's writing, whether it's music, whether it's actual painting and drawing. Cause there's so many different ways to be able to express. So yeah, I think, I mean, that's what it is. It's a way of being able to express, express yourself out there in the world.

[00:11:19] Donna Kay Yarborough: I think the best definition I have for it is connection. Like I mentioned earlier, that moment of unity is what makes live performance so much fun. I think any sort of art you've thrived for that point that the person who creates, meets with the person who observes and they share an awareness of some sort of information or perspective. You'll see a lot of people that say, "I do my art for my sake and I don't care what other people think." And quite honestly, I feel like that's a very selfish approach to art. You can be true to yourself and still honor the audience at the same time, because it's a symbiotic relationship. You are not an artist in a vacuum. We all exist because we are in the presence of each other.

[00:12:21] Christopher John Garcia: Art is that thing you do that is mostly useless, but ultimately important. It is the shape of the tool, not the use of the tool, I think is the way I, I wrote it in a paper once when I was trying to be smart. It's really about something that brings you an emotional experience of some sort that isn't just because of what it does, but what it is. And so, you know, we have paintings around the house 'cause my wife's mother's a actual painter who paints actual paintings. And every time I see one of them, it makes me feel hungry and it's because there's all sorts of food in it. But, you know, I consider that to be art because it draws an emotion out of me.

[00:13:08] Jeff Leisawitz: Art is anything that a human creates with the intention of expression.

[00:13:16] Natalie Cordone: I think art to me is self-expression in a way where you're attempting to communicate something that is incommunicable to another person.

[00:13:27] Shawn Kilgore: That's good. I think for me, it's the opportunity to escape.

[00:13:33] Corry MacDonald: Oh, art to me is pure expression from anybody's soul: on a page, in a meal, it can be the way they garden, the way they put themselves together with their clothes, or sculpture, music. Oh, any pure expression from the soul.

[00:13:52] Sandy Rodriguez: Well, I think that the dictionary definition would be simply something like, "the expression of human creativity and imagination to something such as a painting or a sculpture." Normally it's in visual form, but, personally, I think that it doesn't necessarily have to be in visual form. I think, for example, poetry can be a form of art. Certainly music can be a form of art as well. So I think it goes beyond, it goes beyond the visual. It's basically the application of creativity and imagination into something that speaks to others. I believe that would be the definition.

[00:14:32] Sabrina Osso: Freedom. Freedom, and freedom is a two way street. I'm free and you're free. So that should be without harm, without anything negative. It is, it is freedom of expression. Just freedom.

[00:14:49] Anthony Saldana: Hmm, well, art can be a lot of things. It's something that you can make. You know, you can express yourself in so many different ways and it doesn't matter the material that you use or the sense that you use. You can make something in two dimensional, three dimensional. You can use your body as a dancer, like you, Lindsey, you're an artist, even though you say you can't do a drawing, but you can express yourself with your body. It's really about using your soul to basically express yourself to the world.

[00:15:25] Jason Figueira: I think that art in a way is a advanced form of communication. It's trying to communicate something, not just with words, but with sounds, with touch, something that it can appeal to almost all five senses. And I think it's like a window into someone's experience that it goes beyond just saying spoken dialogue we use every day. It's really helps other people. It helps bring them into an environment where an artist would like them to be your image, shaping a whole new reality in a way. And it's amazing what you can do with art. I mean, just from one picture, someone can leave their present day and be transported into a whole new one. So art, yeah, I would say is a very highly advanced form of communication.

[00:16:20] Sharon Glassman: I think it's a feeling generated by a selective something. So it could be a painting. It could be a dance. It could be a song, but I think it's that combination of created experience and emotion.

[00:16:45] Christopher Boorman: Generally speaking, I would say art is some kind of documented experience or a worldview that is intended to evoke either thought or emotion in the observer.

[00:16:58] Bryan Colley: I think art, in the grand scheme, art is, is how we communicate. It's, it's the most advanced form of communication. I mean, there's the obvious, you know, language-- you write a book and, and use words, and that's the obvious communication. But, and, and that works great if someone can speak that language, but not everyone does. And art is a way you can communicate that goes beyond language. And, and even as a playwright, of course I'm using words, but, but theater as a, as a way of communicating, it's, it's, it's, it's not just using words to tell a story. It's, it's putting, putting a scene on stage and communicating that experience. So you can communicate the experience, you can communicate emotions. I mean visual art is the way to communicate, you know, how do I describe the color blue? Well, I can, I can do a lot of words during it to tell you what blue is and never really explain it, but I can show you the color of blue and I can do, you know, a painting that shows you something you haven't seen before and communicates new ideas and thoughts and experiences. And I think that's kind of what art is all about and what, you know, it's what brings us together, humanity together, more than anything else.

[00:18:30] Jessie Katz Greenberg: So my answer is very simple and I just feel art is creative expression, and I want to be really clear in saying that it can be any creative expression. Crafting is art. Obviously, as you know, like dancing performance is art. Whether you are creating art in your bedroom or a professional studio, if this art ends up in the trash or hangs in a gallery, it's your creative expression and it's art.

[00:18:59] Patricia Karen Gage: I think art is liberating and it is the, probably the most relevant document of history that exists.

[00:19:13] Sally Brown: Art is everything. Art is the way to see. I mean, if I was going to get particular, I would say it's something that is, it's expressed. But if you look at things in different ways, anything can be art.

[00:19:25] Will Blaine: I think that, that art is tied up in an emotional expression, for me anyway. I think many people do art for different things, but I think it is always tied up with the emotion that you're feeling. It's very, it's very deeply emotional, whatever it is and that's, and that's why I don't think that art has to be anything particular. You don't have to draw a tree or a bush or a person, you know, you can just-- you'll see how the colors blend, and you can see how the shapes go together. You can see what space there is and, you know, whatever you're feeling that day, it affects what you're going to put down on that page. And it that's, that's, that's so fundamental to what art is. I think that defines what it is.

[00:20:09] Phillip Andrew Bennett Low: I'm the broad definitions guy. So I mean the, the cop-out answer would be to just say, I'd accept whatever definition anyone wants to give, but trying to be a little more thoughtful about it. How do I define art? I would say, I would say it takes a, there has to be an element of artifice for me. In, and even saying this as a storyteller who stands on stage telling personal stories, I think there does have to be an element of someone presenting themselves to someone else and presenting something created, something that there is an acknowledgement between the person presenting it and the person receiving it, that there is an element of unreality to this. That's pretty vague, but that's the first thing that's sprang into my head. So I think I'll stick with it.

[00:21:01] Aunia Kahn: So, you know, art, art is whatever it wants to be. And I, I'm really in love with all aspects of creativity. There's so many things that I'm sure that even people that are listening to that don't recognize as art or things that are going on that people aren't seeing, performance art being one of them, the collage community. I mean, there's just so many different types of art and it can be whatever it can be, whatever it wants to be, whatever you want to call art. If I want to put a, a rock on my desk and put a little hair clip on top of it, and I want to call it a sculpture, like, that's what I feel art is. I feel art is really anything you want it to be and anybody can be outside and go, yeah, that's a hair clip in a rock. Like that's not art, you know? And that's fine. Like, that's fine. But what we feel is it, how, how are we expressing ourselves? And if that makes me feel something, it's putting that hair clip on that rock does something for me, that's all that it really matters because art is really not about the viewer. It's more about the person doing it. Now, I know there's plenty of people who create art as you know for social justice and political reasons. Like I get that, like, it is more for the viewer. Like I get it. And maybe the people are doing it or having a really great experience around it as well.

[00:22:25] But when I think of art, I think about the core aspects of how is the person creating it, feeling about it? What are they getting from it? And that is really all that should matter to an artist. First of course, there could be other layers, like an onion on top of it, of how they want to take that out into the world. And if they want to take it out into the world, because there's a lot of people out there who are doing art that nobody even knows exists. Like my partner is also a gallery artist. And over the last year, he's decided he's not doing public art anymore. He's-- not public art, like, you know, public art in public places, but putting his art into galleries. And he has been doing a really private study of his own work and totally changed his style as well. And there's plenty of artists out there that we'll never see, we'll never get to experience, but it's all about the experience for ourselves while we're creating the work.

[00:23:22] Even if we're creating it just for commerce. And that's fine too. If you want to be an artist and you want to create it for commerce and you know what people like, and you know how to sell it, good for you. You know your reason behind it, it doesn't make it any less art than somebody who's creating something for galleries or creating something, you know, just for themselves or maybe even for their parent or their best friend. So that's kind of what art is to me, the experience of creating something. What it does, how, how we experience it, and then the decision of how we're going to take that further if we want to take it further.

[00:23:58] Justin Alcala: I think I may have said it before that art is creation through the aptitude and inspiration in order to communicate something amazing. And for me, you know, it's using what's playful, awkward, and a little dorky to tap into the human element and entertain.

[00:24:14] Natsune Oki: Since I'm such like so heavy into what I do with it, I thought education may be the only thing that I can think of when I think about art is our possibility and our future.

[00:24:26] Rachel Moore: The first thing that comes into my mind for what it's worth is, is, is actually my friend's definition of music. And she says that in order for something to be music, it has to have a rhythm. And I, yeah, I kind of feel like I could apply that to almost all art forms, right? Like I like to do a lot of photography too, you know, just, just like in, you know, amateur photography, whatever. But I like to find like, okay, what's in the front of this photo, what's in the back? What are the patterns of this flower that I'm taking a picture of? Right? Like what's the rhythm of this. There's something in there and I could probably write or talk more about this at some point, but there's something in there about the rhythm of music or visual art or dance or writing, especially I definitely, I, when I was a newspaper copy editor, I always have to check myself because I tended to like the headlines that sounded the best rather than maybe were the best written. So I'm like, okay, wait, it has to be accurate too, not just sound great. So yeah, something about that, that the rhythm and the sound.

[00:25:30] Lindsey Dinneen: Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope you thoroughly enjoyed all of the answers to the question, "What is art to you?" I love hearing those responses. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I have reliving these moments of inspiration and beauty. And if you're feeling as inspired as I am, I would love if you would share this episode with a friend or two and we will catch you next time.

[00:25:58] If you have a story to share with us, we would love that so much. And I hope your day has been Artfully Told.