What was the last thing you saw that made you stop and take a second look?

What makes the hair on your neck prickle in amazement? So incredible you gasp? Chances are it wasn't man-made but already there for us to see, for everyone to enjoy.

Art surrounds us and is not restricted simply to a canvas in a gallery. It is in everything we see if we choose to see it and wherever it came from and however it got there is no matter. Possibly my only regret at learning to be a driver and rarely a passenger is that I cannot look around as I travel around the country.

Art is in the cheeky smiles of my children, from time to time I capture an expression in their eyes that makes me wish I could store it forever. I try and have a camera with me but not even the most hi-tech lens of a camera can see what I can see.

Vivid colour, from the blue sheen of bluebells in a wood to a reflection of a winter sunset in a duckpond on a cold afternoon in January. Ripples in a puddle that calm to echo the clouds above. I do feel sad for those who walk by and steer away from such sights, for they really are missing out. The peaceful and warm feeling sitting inside and watching snow fall or hearing rain pelt on a conservatory roof for art reaches out to more than just our eyes. It is generous in that those with restricted senses can also enjoy it.

To hear art it is in sounds of birds, while their early morning song is a source of annoyance, there are not that many who don't cheer upon listening to their chatter. Waves crashing onto a beach, lively chatter at a party, arrivals and departures at stations and airports. Emotion is a valuable form of art that forms characters. Who can freely say that children singing - either to themselves or to an audience has not moved them at some time? I love to hear them at Christmas, earnest little voices telling about a baby asleep in a manger, or a donkey carrying a lady through the night to have a baby.

Art can be felt through touch, and the texture of bark, or soil running through our fingers. It is all there for its own special reason. It is most apparent in clay and sculpture, though sculpture encompasses many mediums. My own husband may mock my crossing a shop to stroke a piece of fabric, or simply to touch a sheet of scrapbook paper, but I am merely quenching an urge of inquisitiveness how does it feel?

Art too can be appreciated through a smell as this can evoke a feeling within us, and the sense of smell could even save a life, itself too an impressive artform

So the question really should be not how to define art but why even attempt to define art?
Maybe it is a little vain in that it makes itself available to us in all these ways, as if to say hey I am here! But who can fault something so wonderful and accessible that is ever present to everybody?

Learn more about this author, Jo Orbell.
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