by Beau Smith

Created on: June 10, 2007

One might as well ask, What is life? And that's a good place to begin because that is just what art is: life. Art embodies life.
The statements I make here are the result of my having been an artist most of my life, certainly all of my adult life. I have been a professional artist for most of those years. Before I was a professional, I was studying to become a professional. But I was never in it for the money. Hah. As would most artists maintain. Sadly, the state of their pockets and pocketbooks pointedly reflects this.

I don't say that art embodies life simply because I have observed this to be true. I have. But I say art embodies life because I have given a lot of thought to the subject of art. Not only have I given much thought to the subject, I have also lived in such a way as to understand as much as I could possibly understand about art and the creative process. Many artists satisfy themselves simply with making art. They don't seek to understand it. Picasso said that if he knew what art was, he'd keep the information to himself. I think he did know what art was and that he kept the information to himself. But he may not have been able to communicate his knowledge in words. That was not his medium.
It is mine, one of them. I studied many mediums, seeking to master them as best as I could, but more than that, I sought to understand them and to understand myself through them. I came to understand basic modes of perceiving. I believe that we have three basic modes of perceiving. These modes are also the three basic modes of consciousness. One could also call these modes the three basic creative energies. The three basic creative energies or modes of consciousness and perception are vision, essence, and flow. These modes relate to three basic art forms: painting, writing, and music. Sure, countless art mediums exist, just as do ways of perceiving. But if you were to get to the most basic mediums and the most basic modes of perceiving, this is what you will find.
In my desire to understand art, I found myself gravitating to the basic art mediums of painting, writing, and music. One day while painting, I went out for a run and had the realization that painting creates vision. As my mind went with that idea, it occurred to me that writing creates essence and music creates flow. Thus began a philosophical understanding that has blossomed into an ever growing model of, well, of everything (which includes "nothing", by the way). I call the line of thought that creates

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