Home Is Where the Art Is

Collecting Art,  Making Art,  Becoming Art

I have struggled for most of my life with the term "art" and "artist" for a variety of reasons, I suppose. 
People have argued and debated about what is art for as long as human kind has existed perhaps even before that.
I can imagine neanderthals arguing over cave paintings as to which were simple drawings and which were works that could be elevated to that rarefied level of art; although without language that might have been a bit awkward and confusing. 

That all said I have been involved  in the arts for as long as I can remember. Some of my best friends are considered to artists. I have worked in the "art department" in the film business for the last 34 years. I have been transporting and handling and art for that same amount of time. It sort of goes with the job needless to say. 

I've had to use a forklift to hang some pieces. And I've hung hundreds of pieces with monofilament which can be quite challenging with larger works.

As a set decorator, I have had to choose thousands of pieces over the years. It was at this point that I began to collect art. I could finally afford to and because I was renting or buying them to use on sets, I was able to get nice discounts. I also started making friends some of these folk.   

But again I never considered myself an artist, a craftsman perhaps but certainly not an artist. 

I used to make quite fanciful dinner center pieces that people said qualified. 

My various landscaping endeavors have been called artistic. 

When I was homeschooling my daughter, for PE aka physical education we decided to study "circus arts", so I became adept at juggling, unicycling, trapeze, face-painting and vaudevillian humor. 

The camps I've traveled to Burning Man have always been considered Art Camps. 

My body has become a canvas for several tattoo artists, although my first tattoo was one I attempted and has since been covered up by a better piece and my second work was a brand which obviously isn't a tattoo but certainly is in the same genre. 

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