where art lives / there is art in everything

14 March 2019

Written by Jada Harris

There is an art in the stagnant things like Christmas lights and the collage of books on a shelf. In silverware and china plates, air conditioning and cracks in the sidewalk. Coat hangers. Candles. Magnets and cloud formations. The number of people getting coffee at Starbucks this morning and the amount of time it took you to count them.

There is an art in movement. In the way you collapse on the bed after a long day and in the way we brush our hair. In the steps of the person in front of you so focused on their phone they might miss their stop. In the way you move your hair out of your eyes and the sway of wind chimes. The sway of earrings and dangling headphones. Dog ears that move up and down, eraser shavings as they fall, ocean waves as they ebb and flow. Every movement is performance art.

There is an art to the things that just are. Like the way that brown eyes are a collection of everything that exists outside including the trees that kiss the sky and the ground that helps them stand. The way that people stand in lines that somehow curve and flow. Gentle hands and guiding eyes. Every pair of socks that fit and pockets that hold just enough. Walking into a classroom with your favorite seat still open and finding that the store has just enough of the only candy you wanted. Snapping a picture of your neighbors potted plant and posting the picture because it was #GoldenHour. Somehow everything fits together and your pictures of it become a valuable collection of artwork. 

There is an art in the way we write all of this down. The movement of my hands tapping the keyboard right now. The dance your fingers do on your screen when you are bored and don't know where to go next. In messy pages we wanted to be neat and neat pages we wanted a mess. The way that paint moves on its own and books are the perfect weight and pencils the perfect color.

There is an art in what we see. A perfectly curated collection of pins and patches and I bet if you asked anyone who owns these about where they got them, they would have so many stories to tell you. There is an art to anyone who has put posters on their wall or stickers on their laptop. Organizing your closet by season, the fruit that is stacked so carefully in the grocery store, your favorite mug. We chose so many of the items that we have, this color over that one, so that all of our things because our own personal art exhibits. Furniture is visual art yet sculpture with a practical function and maybe if we looked at all of our things like that, we would value them more and invest in things we can reuse and keep forever.

There is art in the missing things. In the words on the tips of your tongue that you can't quite reach. In the words stuck in your throat you can't seem to pull out. The forgotten things under your dark bed frame. Skipped lines while reading, spilled food, the landscape you look at with your eyes but don't take all of in.

This is what I mean when I say I want to capture it. Save it. Learn more about it. Spend my time exploring because some people don't see it the same way and tell me it is not worth investing into because sometimes it isn't tangible so to them it isn't real. It doesn't mean anything.

Waving to a friend is art. Van Gogh's Starry Night was just another night. Monet's Water Lilies, just lilies.

All of these things could have looked so much different but they are here the way they are for a reason and exist just that way so you could see them. I am grateful for this. They had an infinite amount of possibilities but this is the one that worked out, the parallel universe that chose us, the circumstances that arose and I think that is art.