art

My sister arrived home for the holidays with stories from her new life in the midwest. One story acquainted me to an old, sprightly woman whose hobby filled her house with yarn and plastic board structures, signs, and kleenex box covers. While the yarn creations awed my sister by their complexity, they were kitsch.

Is this art? Is art the act of creating, the act of creating something expressive, or the act of creating something expressive which contains other ambiguous words: beauty, love, and inspiration?

I am inclined to identify art from the creator’s standpoint. How was it intended? Did the act of creation lend itself to self-discovery and pronouncement, or to hobby and output. I knit. My socks and scarves are beautiful and my stitches very straight, but knitting is not my art. A friend of mine’s quilting, however, reveals her art. Let me realize, that by assigning art to the intention, I renounce accidental art. Can art be an accident?