What Is Art and How It Works
Going back to The How of Making Things, when something is being made, it is necessary to make choices about what and how it is going to be. Today we rarely have to make things ourselves; we have many stores and options to buy (as long as we have the money), yet the principle still … Continue reading The Way Things Look
Initially I wasn’t thinking about style at all. I was simply thinking about the manner, the way, of making something, so that the result becomes its specific look. Then in the dictionary I discovered that that was the definition of style. So I went into Encyclopedia.com to look up the subject in more detail, and … Continue reading What About Style?
What I thought would be an easy post turned into a much more difficult and time consuming in-depth look into words, facts, and theories. And it isn’t finished yet. So here is the beginning. Besides all the facts about art always being present where humans are present, there is something else to consider. If one … Continue reading The How of Making Things
To answer the question “Is art real?”, I have found two things so far: 1) Art was present from the beginning of mankind, and 2) All human groups, from earliest known to contemporary to recently found in remote parts of the globe, have it. This to me establishes the reality of art being an integral … Continue reading Who Needs Art?
Dear reader, I had planned on writing here once a week, but since last week I didn’t, I decided to share the reason. My 11-year-old niece is visiting from out of town, and I'm happy to spend time with her. Since she loves animals, I decided to take her to San Diego Zoo Safari Park. … Continue reading On a Personal Note (1)
Kukeri (pronounced ‘koo-keh-ri) is a traditional Bulgarian ritual performed in the winter. (It is also known in other south-eastern European countries like Serbia and Romania). Men dressed in costumes walk the streets of a village, visiting the houses, and dance in the village square to chase away evil spirits and bring good harvest and health … Continue reading Kukeri
Dear reader, Before my lyrical interlude, I left off at pre-historic art. The discussion is: Is art an integral part of our life or something supposed and agreed upon by people – a kind of social construct one can interact with or not according to his own preference. In the post “Beginnings” I showed evidence … Continue reading Art Is Everywhere
Dear reader, Do you have imagination? You must! Even as the current definition of imagination is complex, vague, and sometimes self-contradictory, it is an indisputable reality that a faculty we call imagination exists in every human culture and all throughout known history. So it is something real – yet we might not clearly understand it … Continue reading Lyrical Interlude (1)
Probably the first observable fact about the reality of art would be the presence of cave paintings and carved figurines at the sites where pre-historic human existence has been found. What the mentality of those men was is hard to know, probably impossible at this time, but they obviously thought of more than food and … Continue reading Beginnings
Is art real? That may sound like a very stupid question, but I believe the saying that no question is stupid if one doesn’t know the answer. A real thing is something that exists on its own – as opposed to something that is supposed or imaginary. For example, before Isaac Newton derived the existence … Continue reading Reality
Art and the Invisible 