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Art Matters – Why people should live with art

By Janet Sellers

An artist may or may not show their work publicly. Fortunately, most artists will show and sell their creations. It is an act of sharing, and of course a strategy for attracting attention to one’s creative prowess.

Living with art gets you beyond everyday activity.

“It’s a matter of pure enjoyment, but also, living with art gives people a sensitivity, absolutely, and more feeling, more understanding,” Peter Selz, founding director of the Berkeley Art Museum, said in a recent interview for the library about the University of California at Berkeley art lending program. “Living with art gets you beyond everyday activity into a deeper world.”

Such library loans, museum loans, or rentals assemble a collection of works touched by the hand of the artist and make them available to students, which would support a meaningful extension of the university’s art teaching program. Many museums also have lending libraries of original art, and artists can offer their works in this way as well. Original art is available to live with and display, for a short while.

Even animals make art with a purpose

I recently saw a video of a puffer fish making an extraordinary sand mandala exhibition to attract a female mate. The male creates an elaborate mandala in the sand about 30 meters below the ocean surface and must maintain it carefully. A female will evaluate the structure and choose the male after evaluation and completion of other courtship behaviors. The females leave the nest but males stay and will care for the eggs and protect them until they hatch in about a week. They will chase off predators or other rival males that come to the nest. The mandala nest will deteriorate over time and won’t be used again.

Art as attractant and courtship display

The National Library of Medicine (in an article on communicative and integrative biology) reports that, “The bowerbird makes elaborate structures and decorates them with colorful objects. These are not nests. The operational definitions of art, judgment, and aesthetics suggest that great bowerbirds are artists and have an aesthetic sense. Males create art because their created bower is voluntarily viewed by females, leading to changes in their behavior up to and including courtship with the artist. Male bowerbirds have an aesthetic sense in that they have to create the bowers and forced perspective, and appear to constantly maintain and improve the bower geometry.”

Just as a male bowerbird chooses and displays its found treasures to be viewed and ascertained by his audience (female bowerbirds), so does a museum curator, who is responsible for designing displays and arranging art for exhibition. The bowerbird guards his creative display or artwork, and the museum curator is guardian of the artwork and exhibit. Both will have a voluntary audience to view and make judgments about acceptance of the works.

While these fascinating art experiences are temporary for appreciation, we can take a prompt from the phenomenon. When we like a work of art, we can get it for posterity. Some artworks are one of a kind, some are handmade prints or photographic prints in editions of specific multiples. Many artworks become family heirlooms, and some collectors’ artworks go out for a paid loan to museums for view or are sold at a profit for the collector as the artwork increases in value.

Janet Sellers is an artist, writer, and speaker. Her paintings, sculptures, and print artworks are exhibited coast to coast and locally in Colorado. Contact her at JanetSellers@ocn.me.

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