Ep 1, Artist’s Journey

What Draws You to Art? | The Artist's Journey Ep1 | Oz Fine Art

Transcript

Hello and welcome to you and your family. I am so glad to meet you in this context, and it is good to share this time together.   📍 I'm Jo and this is Oz FineArt. Welcome to our channel and , to our   📍 series called The Artist Journey. Today's the first episode,   📍 and this episode is about why do people love art so much?

What attracts you to art?  So we'll be reflecting on this and please stay with us for the duration as there's lots of insights coming forward. And towards the end of the video, we'll have a special offer just for you.

Art for me has always been such a part of my life and woven into things since childhood really, and part of my professional path. And, uh, it's not just about what hangs on a wall either. Um, it's really about. Art as connection expression and, and understanding the world around us. Art has been a central part of self-expression for me as a musician, singer, songwriter, as a student.

As a teacher, as a scholar, as an author, art has been part of the integral process. The, you know, dynamic process of of creating and sharing information, and not just information, but a sense of culture, of values, of wisdom, of, of, of insight of. Uh, the existential real, real life struggle to find answers and to move forward with issues in life.

Art has been integral to that whole process, and art for so many people is, I think, a very limited definition. It's like, you know, the art that hangs on the wall. But really art is a process. It's a dynamic living, breathing process that happens in time. A process is something that unfolds through our actions.

It's not an abstract, well, it can be an abstract painting, but an abstract painting itself is a process. It takes steps. And engagement and investment of personal energy to create an abstract painting. And as such, art is really about energy. Art is about the energy of life, but it's the energy that you and I bring to the process and the insights that we share.

 So let's start with the basics. And think back for a moment to your earliest memory of art. I think this exercise is really helpful to understand really our earliest impressions of art, the concept of art, but also the experience of art. When you think back to your earliest memory, what comes up, where does it take you?

For some it might be. A vibrant drawing on a fridge. It might be an early sketch from childhood with crayons or some other piece of art that you saw or experienced. It might be something that you created yourself or it might be, uh, something that you grew up. With that was in the house or uh, an artistic expression, or perhaps it was even a piece of sculpture or a special handmade cup.

Uh, for, For different people it will be very different experiences, you know, and I think honoring your own memories and your experience of art is important because it, it highlights the value. And the personal story that you bring to the art process and how you then relate to art now is partially influenced, you know, by those early experiences and how that evolved over time.

And so for other people, it could be an intricate pattern from. From a, a quilt that was made by a grandmother, a great-grandmother that was passed down through the generations in your family. It could have been, for example. An Afghan that your grandmother made. One of my earliest memories personally is definitely of the Afghans that my grandmother made, and she had the beautiful, um, beautiful old kind of approach to pulling together, uh, pieces of.

Yarn into squares and turning those into blankets. And I loved her blankets the most where she used leftover yarn and, and would construct hundreds and hundreds of colors all in one little square and then combined those into a massive blanket. And I just thought it was so beautiful and so creative. One of my earliest memories, I still have one of her Afghans with me after all these years and traveling across the world, settling in Australia where I am now.

And I still have my grandmother's Afghan. And it gives me a lot of comfort and I think of it as an expression of art. For others. You know, art comes from these deep developmental personal roots that are in our history, in our upbringing, and in these early exposures we come to understand. An element of what art kind of is and what it could be and how it's defined socially by those around us.

And these ideas and values can shape our entire relationship with creativity. And this can be a positive process for some of us, but it can also be really quite limiting. And I think in some ways, for me personally, even though I define myself as an artist, I, and I identify with the artist path, the artist journey.

That has been a struggle for me. I really, I. Deeply intense struggle because I didn't have that support in that family early culture of growing up where the working class mentality of, of Canada at the time was, uh, deeply steeped in a practical. Wisdom, I'd say, but kind of a limited approach. A limited perspective as well because of the importance of art and music and culture.

I think that the, the working class culture of the past. Has limited these expressions. And of course it's a very practical consideration. You have to get a job and you have to make ends meet and you have to, uh, you know, as the script goes, you have to survive in the big bad world. And this is definitely part of that up upbringing and, and pressure that we feel growing up to get on with it, so to speak.

And, you know. And that's, that that has its place and that's important. And that's a valuable thing to sustain our lives and to be practical, to put food on the table, to pay our rent, to pay our mortgage, to deal with all of the pressures of, of life and the work world. And this is true also now. And with the, the, the dramatic changes happening with the emergence of AI and all of these issues.

Um, bring to the fore this tension between what is creativity and what is sustainability, what is practicality and what is the artistic vision and how can we manifest that? These are critically important questions. So I think that art appreciation, it does draw into our developmental history, our experiences, our exposures to art, and what does this mean over time, and how does this form our relationship with the very notion of the practice of creativity.

I remember for example, that the colors and textures of our family garden in the backyard were a powerful and artistic experience. For me, walking through the forest with Skipper, a German shepherd that I grew up with in my early years. Was an exposure to the intense creativity and beauty of nature. And for me, that expression of the world around me was a dynamic experience of creativity that later in life I came to understand as part of, and.

Artful way of living, of appreciating beauty and what does this mean and how do we relate to that? How do we experience it in our senses, and how does that manifest in our identity then, and our emotional sense and our relationships? Profound questions to really consider.

 And really then there is cultural background and how our culture and family environments, uh, inform us as we're growing up. And art is such a powerful mirror of culture and of broad social values. It can tell stories, it can preserve traditions. Art expresses shared values and stories and wisdom. Think about how different cultures express themselves through your own familial and cultural background, and think about how art today expresses the culture that you feel.

You know, that you identify with the culture that you, uh, resonate with and maybe also the culture that you struggle with or that you differentiate yourself against. Culture is a dynamic process, right? Of course. And art like culture is also very dynamic. And so it's not so much about resonance all the time.

Art doesn't always resonate. Art can also differentiate. Art can can push the boundaries. Art can shift our way of thinking. Art can challenge our preconceptions. And art can be very, you know, deconstructive really. Pulling apart the values that we may assume that we have, but that need to be questioned. So art can raise questions, and those questions can be really pregnant.

They can be, they can be dynamic and powerful. They can generate new. Life new awareness, new new, uh, sensibility, and a new capacity and skillset. Art can push us beyond our limitations. So art is an ancient bedrock of culture in many respects. And art is, you know, I like that. Um, rock art paintings, for example, to modern street art, to, to digital art, and even perhaps at the edges.

A AI art generated art is incredibly. Counterintuitive, isn't it? And demands a, a new way of thinking about art. And I guess ultimately it's so personal to each of us, isn't it that in my own background, there's a strong emphasis on storytelling and community and cultural layers of art. And these have informed my own appreciation of how art can be a story.

And stories are, are medicine in that native tradition, and stories are a way to pass on our knowledge and wisdom. Stories are a embodiment of. Of a truth and a wisdom that's handed down over the generations. And in the same way art carries that forward. Art brings us back into ancient times through.

Petroglyphs on the stones or through cave art paintings or through indigenous styles of art that manifest through weaving of grass and of um, and of basket making and, uh, using, uh, organic materials and. Advancing into the use of clay and firing the clay and, uh, making bowls that represent the organic nature of our hands.

For example, that the bowl shape was one of the most ancient forms of pottery, simply because our hands are how we grasp onto water from a stream and one of our ancient ancestors in different parts of the world realized at different times and different places. Wouldn't it be neat if I could create a a shape that was like the cups of my hands and to take up the water from the stream with a bowl.

So bowls became one of the most ancient forms of pottery, and there is an artfulness in this. There's a practicality, but there's also an aesthetic of value, a fine art layer of awareness and of appreciation that the art form expresses, uh, human dimension, a desire to take our existence further with new insights, new experiences, new capacities and skills.

 So speaking about narrative art is a sacred story that is incredibly compelling. Every brush stroke, every curved line, every carved line in clay, for example, or in the textures of the paint can be a word. A visual language, an emotional expression, a psychological mindset, a cultural or familial meaning and power.

It's not just about what you see, it's about what you feel. It's about the emotions that it evokes in you. Art is a communication about the human experience. We so normalize our human experience, that we devalue it all the time, but the human experience is so profound. It is so amazingly profound, and, and there are narratives of joy, of struggle, of love, of resilience, of passion.

Of betrayal. There are stories of intense, intense

creativity in our loving each other in our lives that we share together. There is every aspect of the human passionate experience expressed through the lens of art. Art is also deeply tied to learning. It's a way to explore new ideas and to challenge our perspectives, to see the world through different eyes, to think about how much we learn.

F about history through art, to learn about social relationships and experiences, to learn about the, the, uh, sociology of culture, to learn about our own psychology and the psychology of other people. Art informs us about how people think. How they feel, how they express their passions, as well as their prejudice.

Art gives us an engagement with different eras and places and times Art connects us to place, to sacred country, to our origins, to our cultural. Our cultural origins, art is a continuous form of education and it opens up so many doors, as well as closes doors by giving us a sense of meaning, of clarity and insight.

 So art is a reflective tool. It reflects personally, but also socially and historically, art reflects society and culture. Art can reflect political realities. Art can make statements about what's happening out in the world and in quite powerful ways. Art can. Provide social, even prophetic commentary. Art can literally change our mindsets and, and art has a transformative element to it.

The best art emerges from this transformative moment because art is alive In this sense, art is a relational process. It's not just the art that exists as an artifact. Art is also the process of communication. And wherever you have human communication, you have a dynamic process of evolution, change, challenge, and new insight.

And that new insight leads forward into new actions, new ways of being, new ways of, of of acting, new ways of constructing knowledge and further social and political actions emerge from these processes. So art has a dynamic part to play in that story. Now let's talk about art as a form of collecting, because collecting also has a dynamic and changing, evolving layer to it in today's world, and the act of becoming an art collector, an art connoisseur and, and a a lover of art is.

A dynamic and engaging process.

 Please   📍 like and share this video and, uh, share it forward with the people that you care about and that you feel might be interested in this discussion. In our channel, Oz FineArt,   📍 we're really wanting to build community and part of that algorithm, the dear old algorithm in YouTube. Uh, by   📍 hitting that like, and by squashing that subscribe button, you are telling YouTube that other people might be interested in what we're doing and we appreciate your referral of, of our quality work to

uh, people who might enjoy this.   📍 Thank you so much for that. Please also add comments below the video questions, insights, challenges, whatever you want to actually express. We're quite willing and. Quite interested in hearing what you, what you have to say. And the more that comments appear below videos generally it, it really tells YouTube that we have a passionate and insightful and, uh, very gifted community interested in our

videos.   📍 And this builds our channel and also builds our ability to make referrals and to, uh, help people to find our website,   📍 which is at ozfineart.au a new website just recently launched with a lot of very beautiful artworks that are for sale and available.  So feel free to visit our website. So look, ultimately What draws you to art is a very deeply personal question.

There's no right or wrong answer to this question either. It might be the color, the form, the texture, the brush strokes, the. Um, thickness of that paint on the canvas and how it catches the light. It may be the forms that appear, and it may be particular things or themes that you're interested in that appear in the painting.

It may be a sense of emotional connection. It may be the texture of the ceramics or the sculpture. It could even be a memory. That the work evokes within you. All of these tangible aspects, as well as the intangible, more deeply sensory associations that emerge within our unconscious and that feed our art experience and our art appreciation.

All of these layers come together. Form a sense of peace or a feeling of connection, a sense of awe, or even a spark of a challenge or a, uh, a, a kind of, uh, edge. Edge that we feel that pushes us towards a new insight or a thought. Or inspires us to do some research or to learn something new about a topic or an area of human experience we didn't really know about before.

I encourage you to explore what art is for you. What relationship do you have with art? What is the, the aspect of art that really resonates with you? Share your comments in the video in the, in the, in the, in the, um, comments section below the video please and, uh, take a pause and think about how. How does this manifest in your life?

What ways do you want this to increase? You've been watching this show for this length of time. What is it that you're really seeking in the world of art? What is it that you really want? And think about that. It's a powerful question because when you realize what you are, you're edging towards, you come to terms with more of what you want to manifest in your life, you.

In fact, begin to articulate that edge of growth, that edge of new experience, that edge of learning, and that can translate very quickly into a manifestation power that gives you a sense of where you're heading and what you will create in your life. And so art has this dynamic possibility attached to it.

Art's not just about an artifact. As I keep saying, art is about how you manifest your sense of meaning in the world, and ultimately this is your power. This is your spirituality. How you manifest meaning is what spirituality, in fact, is all about. And I really believe this very passionately. I've spent a lot of years researching and exploring human culture, spirituality as a the way that people make their sense of meaning.

And for me,   📍  📍 art is one of the central ways that we do this in practice. And it's one of the most beautiful and powerful and creative. Forms of human agency and human expression and human evolution, and it is not a dying art by any means.  The field of art and its utility and commerce are an emerging phenomenon that continue to grow socially and economically and in so many ways.

 We'll explore more through this series. At The Artist's Journey on Oz FineArt, thank you for joining us. Have a great day.