Tag: artwork

Still practising at 90

Posted on by philipdodson

There was a quote I read today where the legendary cellist Pablo Casals was asked why he continued to practice at age 90. He replied, “because I think I’m making progress”.

Our lives are not a series of one-off things that we do for a little bit and then stop. It is a journey and an adventure, where we continue in the moment to take steps and there does not have to be a final destination. We are obsessed with a start and an end. An art is, whatever your thing is, is for life.

We can always learn and get even better, of course, it is not about perfection, it is about continuing the exploration of our ‘art’, whatever that is. It could be making cakes, writing a book, painting, building a house, teaching, training or playing the cello. It is all an art and each one of us has a unique gift…a gift that we can give away to the world if we choose to.

We are all artists and the joy is in the continual practice and exploration of our unique gift…sharing our light for others takes practice, even at 90.

What is art?

Posted on by philipdodson

All art is useless, I think Oscar Wilde said that.

A fork is useful but I could live without a fork. Art is use-less but I couldn’t live without it.

We slave away in our so called ‘proper’ jobs doing very important stuff to earn lots of money. We’re told at school and by parents that the arts aren’t important and we need to focus on math, science etc so we can get those ‘proper’ jobs.

Then what do we spend our money on from our proper jobs? Well, art for the house, music to listen to, we go to watch a play, we go to the cinema to watch a film, we watch TV, we watch YouTube, we buy a beautifully designed and crafted piece of furniture, we pay an architect to design our new house, we buy a beautifully designed fancy car that looks amazing and so on.

Yep, we work hard to spend our money on stuff that artists, musicians, actresses, designers, architects, creative writers, and so on, who have worked tirelessly as an artist to bring you their art to entertain you or for your enjoyment.

Art is imperfect and it is the imperfect that we love in life, the cracks are how the light gets in.

Useful things are just that, utilitarian and functional. Art is the life and soul of the party, the reason to be alive.

Art is life and without it life would be just useful. I want a use-less life filled with art.