What’s the Point of all this Art then?

What’s it all about, Mike?

I was walking across the field behind the village where I used to live, my heart thumping inside my chest. The icy air felt ragged as I dragged it into my lungs, my body fizzing and contracting with excitement. It was late afternoon on a winter’s day and the sky above me was on fire. Huge bruised clouds of purple and magenta swept across the violet soaked background, streaks of indigo adding dramatic depth whilst the burning orange and fuchsia orb of the setting sun poured liquid gold onto the horizon.

I wanted to fling my arms open wide and absorb this colour and light into my entire body. I wanted to eat it, inhale it, bathe in it , absorb it. I wanted to memorise every rushing shadow, every heart swooping radiant searchlight crossing the firmament. I wanted to be it.

But most of all I wanted to shout out to all the people in the world ‘LOOK! STOP AND LOOK at this! This is mind blowing. Nature is phenomenal! Doesn’t it make you feel simultaneously infinite and insignificant?! Those colours! That light!  LOOK!!’

There was only one other person in that darkening field walking towards me under this apocalyptic sky, his back to the sun. ‘Evening Lou.’ He said as he drew closer, ‘Pissing cold tonight’.

‘Isn’t this…INCREDIBLE?’ I breathed at him.

‘What?’ he replied looking around confused.

I opened my arms to take in the entire cycloramic drama that was going on behind and above him.

‘Oh right, the sky,’ he replied, catching on. ‘What about it?’.

That’s a true story.

Of course, I’m British, so although I felt like I was having the biggest orgasmic, colour-trippy experience of my life, I probably just looked like a middle aged woman walking across a field squinting at the sky and wondering if I should have worn my raincoat.

This was such a small encounter and I’m sure Mike never gave it a second thought, but it  was pivotal for me. It made me realise why I want to make art. Art is connection, both internal and external. The artist says, stop and read this, taste this, listen to this…look at this!

It’s not so much ‘Look what I made’,  it’s ‘Look what I saw!’