Why Art?

Why art? A good question that goes back to the dawn of time. Lisa and I hiked around south of town and saw petroglyphs on the lava rock cliffs left by the original inhabitants of this beautiful land. Their descendants still make the most exquisite art that still captures some magical spirit of this "land of enchantment." The Spanish added their own spiritual interpretation to the mix. These all followed by the representationalist and mordernist interpretations of the last two centuries.

When it comes to art, we humans just can't seem to help ourselves. We have to express, to create, to memorialize, to dance, to sing, to entertain, to tell stories.

One of my favorite artists, Makoto Fujimura, asked this question of a professor in a creative writing class. The answer:

"Your questions are valuable and I encourage you to push that question further, as many writers and artists have done in the past:

Why live?"