When walking through the hopping streets of Manhattan, I came across a pile of items standing on a street corner: a wooden easel with splattered paint colors all over it, a graffitied metal pole with uninterpretable letters on it, and a rolled-up rug. Immediately I saw a variety of different things: art, uncertainty, and trash.
I chose this picture to represent what art is because firstly art is completely subjective. What may seem to be art to one person may not be to another. For example, when I took a picture of the art the two workers who were cleaning out a children’s school looked at me with perplexed faces. One of the workers asked, “why are you taking a picture of the trash”. I responded, “this isn’t trash this is art”. The easel raises questions, creates assumptions and arouses emotions differently to its viewers. Art is full of perspectives. As Jerry Saltz says it best, “money is something that can be measured; art is not. It’s all subjective. Some people, like the two workers, see this picture as trash waiting to be picked up by a garbage truck while they walk down the street in NYC. However, I see this picture as something rather beautiful and metaphorical. This picture exemplifies art. I believe I was fortunate to find and take a picture of a wooden easel covered in many colors, showing a youthful tone and an unpredictable pattern. In my perspective, although the wooden easel looks sad and alone, it exemplifies years of happiness, hard work, good use and youth. This easel at one time was used by a young child or children to express their thoughts and emotions and in my mind’s eye, I see a very happy mother looking at her child’s artwork with sheer joy. This easel is an item that symbolizes and is the backbone for art, paintings and drawings etc… When a person uses an easel, it allows one to produce their work in the same plane they are perceiving things. The easel assists in making the artists artwork more precise and therefore profoundly more expressive.
The graffiti on the street pole leaves me uncertain due to my not understanding the message trying to be conveyed by its creator, and rather it seems to me that the graffiti was just an act of destruction. The calligrapher only thought of himself when he decided to vandalize the property that belonged to the city. Additionally, I find the graffiti person (I prefer not to use the term artist) somewhat self-centered and arrogant to think that his words need to be permanently seen by all. This metal street sign pole does not ignite a sensual experience that I find unique, perhaps, the person who spray painted the letters onto the pole, looks at this work of art as his personal masterpiece.
The picture of the rug is not art to me because it creates no expression of the heart actualized in the real world by any of my senses. It’s a dirty and tattered rug that has no use in the school anymore or anywhere else in the world. It was once a rug that had purpose but no longer can be used or recycled. I just see it as another item that fills our landfills. Thus, art is the completely subjective, honest expressions of the heart actualized into the real world by sensual means.
Andrew Langer