Everybody is an Artist

A recent lecture by Claire Abbott on my MA course sparked some ideas that struck home for me. At one point she quoted Joseph Bois saying, “Everybody is an artist.” Meaning everyone has the power to create and that whatever we do can be our artwork, or our working-in-art. Found on the Tate Modern site, his purpose and direction are poignantly expressed. 

"Central to Beuys's mission as an artist was his expanded concept of art. A frustrated questioner once shouted at him: 'You talk about everything under the sun, except art!', to which Beuys replied: 'Everything under the sun is art!'

Beuys believed art should be a kind of social sculpture in other words, 'how we mould and shape the world in which we live. Sculpture as an evolutionary process'.

'Everyone is an artist' simply means that the human being is a creative being, that he is creator, and what's more, that he can be productive in different ways. To Beuys, it's irrelevant whether a product comes from a painter, from a sculptor, or from a physicist."

What if all your work is your art, even your normal job outside of your artistic practice? What if everyone were an artist, in their daily work, in cooking, in how we raise our children and create our family life. Look at children of a young age, they are constantly in the flow creating, then structured learning begins and they slowly lose that spark, that sense of play in their work. Athletes, musicians and artists are often in the "flow" or in the "zone," as they call it. It is essentially play, how can we cultivate play in our daily lives, how can we play with what life throws at us? How to be present to ourselves, our communities as socially engaged human beings and push to bring about change in our small daily interactions. 

You are the artist in your life, it is how you approach everything that is creative. How to inspire creativity in others, through your practice, your presence, how you bring creativity to life.