Blogging – “Art as an Expression”

(Please use the following links to download a copy of this sample:)

Blogging – “Art as an Expression” – .docx
Blogging- “Art as an Expression” – .PDF

By Katherine L. Pritchard

“Art as an expression”. I’m sure all of us have heard that phrase at one point or another throughout our lives. But what if I told you that statement proved false? What if I said: “Art is expression”? Because it is. Art cannot be anything but expression and I’ll tell you why.

Art is created by people all over the world with an array of tools and supplies – some of which were invented with the intention of artistic use and others, not. But regardless of what they were made for, most tools that exist today are used in creations that are fundamentally the very definition of “art” itself; everything people use to paint a dramatic setting to designing the interior of a home in a New England theme and from preparing a well-presented culinary smorgasbord to the drawing of sharp, contemporary architectural designs, tools are used.

But is this list art? No. This list is nothing more than a collection of functions, operations, and symbols, created with tools. So if the list above is not art, what is? When does art happen? First of all, art is neither physical nor tangible. To put it simply: art is the power behind the functions; behind the operations; and behind the symbols. Art is a potent concept in that it is an ever spreading epidemic of sensations, knowledge, and emotions; it has the unconscious and underlying purpose and ability to go on creating. Art made from an artistic cosmos of sensations, knowledge, and emotions, inevitably gives birth to new sensations, knowledge, and emotions in those whom its existence is revealed. As it is with art – creation begets creation.

As a writer, I have been accused on more than one occasion of being “dreamy and not being realistic.” I don’t believe that artists, myself included, love imagination, creativity, and art so as to escape reality, but rather to improve it.

So, art has been defined; but what about expression? If expression is what makes art real and true, then what is it exactly? Expression can be defined as the release of our own sense of self into the heavens of imagination and creativity, resulting in the contribution and improvement of this condition we call ‘life’. Expression and art are what make something possess an element that has more than ordinary significance. Art cannot be art unless something is being expressed. So if art is created from sensations, knowledge, and emotions – and because creation begets creation – art thus, gives birth to new sensations, knowledge, and emotions, just as a mother gives birth to a child.

Think about it – when a piece of music or an oil painting tug at your heart strings, or increase your blood pressure, or inspire you to find a way to go out and save the world – something new is stirring within you. Your response to the art created new sensations, knowledge, and emotions within your heart and soul. The stirring you experienced shifted your reality, resulting in the manifestation of something completely pure and untouched in all existence; inevitably, your response is a piece of art in turn as well.

Expression is solely for the purpose of communicating; so if art is expression, there is no greater form of undeniable and powerful communication than art itself.  It is a universal language; it is a concept that makes the world continue to make yet one more turn while showering its surface and its people with music, color, dance, shapes, and songs.

So my fellow artists, I charge you to persevere and press on. Release who you are and your true individuality via expression; release your honest sense of self to the rest of the world through any and all art, so that the rest of us may create with you, contribute to the glorious earth we live on, and find peaceful joy in the celebration of the beauty, power, and tranquility that is in the art that embraces us, as we never have before.