by
Ryan Clement
Many years ago I wrote a blog about what is art? President Obama wrote The Audacity of Hope (which I have read. Good book 👍🏽). I, a non-art student, sought to answer this age old question in a blog of only a few words; The Audacity of Arrogance?
Far from it! I was simply explaining what it meant to me because I had concluded that it was for the individual to say how, if at all, a piece of work moved or moves them.
Today, I read a piece by a brilliant writer, Georgi, whose work I greatly admire. He has an insight that makes you think and rethink, which can lead to one self-reflecting on their perspectives and viewpoints on various matters about which he writes. He wrote a piece to which, like many, I responded (for some reason, I can’t find it, and hope it is not/was not lost! 😩)
In a nutshell, I wrote about my moving perspective on a plant 🌱 belonging to my late mother. When she was with us in person, the plant was just a plant and no more. Now, I have not only internalised her love of that part of nature but I absolutely love that plant (and her offspring) 🪴 (which I am reliably informed is called a peony or paeony) that has gown to be more meaningful to me.
As the good piece by Georgi rightly intimates, the plant is the same but my inner has changed, which now makes me view the plant differently. The same could be said of when I had that Eureka moment about Dame Tracey Emin’s work, My Bed, that I wrote about in my blog back in 2023.
“Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.” Oscar Wilde
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet…” William Shakespeare
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