Art Spoiled Culture

In our country we are rich in many things.  We like our luxuries from our big shiny cars to our couples massages to the Italian leather boots we scored for Christmas.  And it's wonderful!  The access so many of us have to so many bright and shiny things.  We love our sexy devices, our imported cheeses, and our bath salts, sugar scrubs, and mud masks.  And as I write to you, dear reader of mine, on my lovely new black, shiny laptop complete with 17 inch touchscreen and all, I feel spoiled.  Very, very spoiled.  But this piece isn't about guilt but rather awareness.  I don't want to talk about money or technology so much as ART.  Art. That short word that beckons more than a million images to mind.  That inexplicable EVERYTHING word!  Tonight I don't want to talk about Picasso or Michael Angelo or Di Vinci.  No.  Tonight I want to talk about whomever it was that designed the embroidered flowers on my IKEA pillow.  Yes.  The one that nearly all of us have, you know?  The one that is sold by the millions?  I want to celebrate THAT artist!  And the ones who paint the greeting cards, too!  The ones with or without glitter.  I am just so ART SPOILED that I sometimes fail to notice that my yoga mat and my sheets and my cups and waste baskets and screen savers and all my adorable printed shirts are someone else's brainchildren!  What a world, huh?!  Everywhere we go!  Everything is dripping with gorgeous ART and here we are acting like that's less than glorious!!  I'm blissing out over here!  No drugs needed and I'm on a total trip!

Life for our ancestors was not so ART SPOILED.  That said, art was one of the first things that distinguished man from other animals.  Cave walls depicting battles, famine, feast, ceremony, hunts...this was the first visual art we know about.  Then came animal hides and the papyrus scroll, hieroglyphs, pyramids, temples, mosaics, immense statues, tiny tea cups.  As a species we've created some truly gorgeous stuff! 

Clothing.  It's a big deal.  It's something we use daily, not just for warmth and comfort, but also for self expression.  The patterns on our scarves and ties and shirts were someone's baby, someone's precious, sacred idea, an idea that "made it."  Old Navy bought it or Dior or whomever.  Point is, it made it OUTSIDE the studio and INTO the great, wide world.  And I, for one, think that's worth more reverence, more appreciation, more NOTICE.  SO!  The next time you're perusing the wine aisle, pretend you're at the museum because, in a sense, you really are.  I don't drink wine but even I love looking at wine bottles.  Not because I have any particular obsession with glass bottles but only because I love the art on wine labels.  Let's notice our wonderful world and celebrate the ARTISTS.  They make our world such an interesting and awe inspiring place.