12.20.2010

Painting

Author's Note: This is my piece that was inspired by the museum. Read the paper to understand my inspiration more.

I have been trying to find an art piece from the museum that speaks to me since the second we left. Honestly, I hadn't been inspired by anything I saw in the museum, even though we had covered the entire area. In an attempt to find something, I visited the museum's webpage and scrolled through dozens of pages of pictures of the art that is on display in the museum, hoping to get inspired. I went into the weekend, knowing the paper was due soon, and knowing that I had a lot to do in the time I could be writing. When I was helping to paint our basement because we are finishing it, I finally got inspired.

After about an hour of standing in my basement, painting, with only the radio blasting Christmas songs about wanting hippopotamuses for Christmas and dreaming about a Christmas where there was snow, I was ready to get violent. Honestly, with only one paint color that I had to paint - not even well, because it was only the first coat - I was going crazy. Then I thought about our trip to the museum and about how long it must have taken to paint any one of those paintings, even the abstracts ones. Suddenly, my one color paint roller work didn't feel so difficult a task to complete.

Before this museum trip, I hadn't understood, appreciated, or cared about art. I'm a terrible artist, so I've never cared about art, but instead worked on other creative outlets like writing, music, and sports. Think about how much time it would take, how much dedication and patience is needed to create a painting that looks so lifelike, combining many colors and brush-strokes to make a masterpiece. What if you messed up and had to start all over again with the work you put so much time into? When I thought about this, I started to think that I had it easy, with my straight-lined, one-color paint roller.

I don't understand art. I never went to art school, and never really understood the expression behind art, especially abstract. When we went to the museum, I wasn't close to being inspired, because I didn't understand the art. To me, a lion standing on a cliff watching the sunset was a lion standing on a cliff watching the sunset. Up until this weekend I hadn't really had an appreciation for art in the same way that I did for sports, music or writing. Then, I found out how much dedication and love of what you're doing had to go into creating an art piece. What I'm trying to say is that even though I don't understand it, even though I may not enjoy the actual piece, I have to appreciate  the commitment needed to paint or sculpt it.