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Humans had been making art for 14,000 years before we even domesticated dogs.  Forget walls and houses.  The order of human development went: fire, tools, art, art, art, dogs, houses, agriculture, metal stuff.   And art has stayed in that picture this whole time. 

But what are we even talking about?  Because that's the thing about art.  Nobody knows what it is.  Nobody can define it. 

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And yet, it was one of the first things humans did. And they did it a lot.  Paleolithic art is a 40,000 year continuous tradition that included detailed anatomical representations, foreshortening, chiaroscuro, and techniques we don't know how to do today, such as creating an image that appears by firelight to be moving in the grass. 

 

Picasso said, when he saw the caves at Lascaux, "we have invented nothing." 

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And humans make art everywhere, in every situation.   In concentration camps.  In prisons.  In every culture of the world.  As children.  Even fish make those mandalas on the sand.  Bowerbirds create colored homes.   What is going on?  What is being transmitted?  What is being expressed? 

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People pay sometimes millions of dollars for pieces of art.  People like me devote tens of thousands of hours to practicing it.  There's something important happening, when we make it and when we look at it as well.  But what?  I don't know.  Truly.  Don't let anyone tell you that life is not full of immense mysteries . 

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Also, if you want to be an artist, you are.   You do not need anyone's permission to connect directly to your innate human legacy.  No external standards are as important as your connection to the things in front of you. and your desire to create something.  Go for it. 

 

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Cave painting at Chauvet Cave.  Four horses outlined in black, with shading.
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