Art Manifesto

For me, I make art because I find that it is the best way to express me as a person, as one that holds a creative mind. An artist is not one that has a certain artistic skill set, but its someone who can translate the physicality of society, the world, their life, etc. into their work they make. I think an artist’s role in society is to take their creative mind and make something good come out of it. I don’t necessarily feel any sort of connection with any art movements in the past, or currently, actually I try to stay away from things that have been controversial, I find them to be overdone and if it doesn’t actually have anything to do with my life than I don’t find it necessary to use that as a means of giving my art “meaning”. I think my work definitely is concerned with myself and the way that I live my life from day to day, its very much about the process of what I am making in terms of the process of how I live my life. Outside of the art world, I am concerned about people. I find people so interesting, how different everyone is. Morals, worldviews, how the were raised, how they are now. I think this does link with my work because my work is about my everyday life, which is surrounded by different individuals. I think art should absolutely concern itself with things outside of art itself, otherwise, why do it? If it means nothing more to you than making pretty things? I think everyone should be concerned with art, but not everyone should necessarily make art. I definitely think it’s a calling in ones life, those who express themselves creatively. The most difficult aspect of non artists understanding art is that they don’t. I think whether we need or don’t need art is definitely a personal thing, like I said, everyone is different. I don’t expect others to give two shits about what I make, because honestly, they don’t. Its unfortunate but as an artist, unless you’re Andy Warhol, you don’t get much credit. I don’t think it is a big deal if I cannot relate to ones work as an artist, but I do think its important for me as an artist, to understand ones work, and grasp the reason why they make it, to an extent. I find it really important that my work communicates to the viewer. That’s probably actually one of my biggest fears, that people will think my work has no depth to it, that I just make it because it “looks cool” or something. I am still trying to understand why certain materials and creative actions speak to me as an artist, but I know that the process of development is a huge part of my work and what I make. What I make isn’t necessarily relevant to where or when I live, but it is relevant to how I live. I think if I were to just make art based on where I live or when, I wouldn’t truly be finding myself in my work, I would just be making what I think others would like to see. Being an artist aids me in living as I think life would be so dull if I couldn’t be creating with my hands, in fact I would probably be failing out of college right now. My biggest motivation for making art is the therapeutic thing it does to me as I sit their and start creating things going through my head, my favorite part is when I have just completed a huge piece and I can just look and stare at what all was going through my mind the whole time.