Overheard

My 4 year old could do that!
In addition to photography my 4 year old does several paintings or drawings every day. She makes up songs. She dances. She is a budding playwright, but what she would really like to do is direct. Since her life is not troubled by the four essentials in my aesthetic thesis her life consumes and exudes art. This will continue as long as there is some ease in her life and the bitter impoverished souls fail to convince her that creation is unworthy or wasteful.

"There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children."
Nelson Mandela

Instamatic

You may have noticed that all the links from my previous post are images on Flickr. On their welcome page under the title and header/image is the number of images that have been uploaded to this one photo sharing service in the last minute. Usually around 4000. Now say Flickr is wildly popular and 1/10^th of one percent of all the pictures taken in the world are uploaded there. This would mean 5 billion 760 million photos are taken every day . Nearly one for every being on earth- every day. Click the blue the last minute link and you will see twenty of those 4000. These have value to someone. Someone picked up their camera, made a decision and set that small instant apart from everything else in the universe. Even my daughter Ella has gotten into the act.

ART

I believe any Philosophy of art should be as broad as possible:

1. Art is the creation or participation in an experience that does not directly serve the four essentials (shelter, security, sustenance, sex).

2. Art is an intrinsic part of life as a human that only be controlled by some sort of tyranny, including definition, explanation, or criticism.

If you wonder what I mean by the Tyranny of Definition, I can guarantee the first part of my thesis of what art is would anger architects, martial artists, chefs and adult entertainers- all of whose efforts I value with varying levels of enthusiasm.