My normal teacher for my Issues in Contemporary Art class was not able to be there last week. As a result, we had some guest speakers. The speaker on Tuesday was Jethro, a fellow teacher in the school of education at BYU. I was not able to attend on Thursday, so I don't know who spoke on that day.
Jethro told us about his art and some of the shows that he had done in the recent past. The thing that stood out the most to me was his thoughts on art changing his life. He decided to make a quilt with tally marks. He sewed each individual tally mark by hand and made a quilt with the tally marks designs that was 6 feet by 6 feet. There were around 100 tallies on each square that made up the 36 squares for the quilt. He said that the stitching became a part of his life. He would stitch while watching TV, while teaching his students, while doing just about anything where his hands could be free to stitch. The stitching was such a part of his life that it changed him. He found that once he was done, he couldn't stand his hands just being idle. He felt like he had to be doing something.
Art can permeate our lives if we let it. Living life can be a work of art. We just need to find out passion. The repetition can lead us to ingrain certain qualities into our souls. We can master a particular technique or medium. We can master one aspect of living by trying to do it perfectly. Practice being kind and you will become kind. Practice drawing hands and you will become good at drawing hands.
I think that it demands a vigilance to maintain as well. You can't just stop doing it once you've mastered somethings. You have to maintain it. If you stop drawing, you eventually get worse at drawing. If you stop being kind, then you eventually stop being able to be kind.
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