Don't just live the length of your life - live the width of it as well.
Diane AckermanRead
Much of life becomes background, but it is the province of art to throw buckets of light into the shadows and make life new again.
Interpretation
Art helps to illuminate and refresh our understanding of life by revealing beauty in the mundane.
In this quote, Diane Ackerman suggests that while much of life can often feel mundane and unnoticed, art has the unique ability to shine a light on those overlooked aspects, revealing their beauty and significance. By doing so, art revitalizes our perception of life, encouraging us to see the world with renewed eyes and appreciation.
In practice
In a discussion about the role of creativity in society, one might use this quote to emphasize art's transformative power.
Don't just live the length of your life - live the width of it as well.
We try to exile ourselves more and more from nature - not always consciously: We build houses; we dismiss nature; nature has to be outside, because we're inside. God forbid something like a cockroach comes inside, or some dust.
We ogle plants and animals up close on television, the Internet and in the movies. We may not worship the animals we see, but we still regard them as necessary physical and spiritual companions. Technological nature can't completely satisfy that yearning.
Because IQ tests favor memory skills and logic, overlooking artistic creativity, insight, resiliency, emotional reserves, sensory gifts, and life experience, they can't really predict success, let alone satisfaction.
American writer_x000D_ _x000D_ 1803-1882_x000D_ _x000D_ Play is our brain's favorite way of learning.
In rare moments of deep play, we can lay aside our sense of self, shed time's continuum, ignore pain, and sit quietly in the absolute present, watching the world's ordinary miracles. No mind or heart hobbles. No analyzing or explaining. No questing for logic. No promises. No goals. No relationships. No worry. One is completely open to whatever drama may unfold.
Wherever I go, I just try to show normal life. If the work helps to dispel stereotypes, it's because I seek not to portray the extremities of a place, but the vast majority of people who are quite normal and are having normal life experiences.
A polka-dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colourful, senseless and unknowing. Polka-dots can't stay alone; like the communicative life of people, two or three polka-dots become movement... Polka-dots are a way to infinity.
The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.
There's design, and there's art. Good design is total harmony. There's no better designer than nature - if you look at a branch or a leaf, it's perfect. It's all function. Art is different. It's about emotion. It's about suffering and beauty - but mostly suffering!
Art is the triumph over chaos.
Painting does more than just point to things. The very act of pointing is a value statement.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.