After (and during) the completion of this weeks project, I began to ask myself “Is this thing that I’ve created art?” I walked out the door of my apartment today without any idea of what I’d make. I had my watercolors. I had some colored chalk that I’d purchased last week. I had a box of clay. I had no preconceived notions, other than “I need to make something, and I want to stay out of my comfort zone.”

There’s a nice spot down by the Hudson river near my apartment with good light. It was a pretty day so I headed in that direction. I sat down on this big stone and began playing with chalk. After a while I shifted to clay and started working with blotches of color pressed into the stone. I had no idea what I was creating, but it was very meditative to just work with color, texture and light. While I was finishing up and photographing the piece, a colleague rode by on his bicycle. At that point, I still had the word “ART?” stenciled next to good old Frederick.  (”Frederick” was a name I only came up with after my colleague looked at the piece and saw something in it that I hadn’t. At that point I had no idea what it was that I’d made…)

To be honest, I was a bit shy about having anyone look at what I’d created and found myself making excuses for the quality. I felt embarrassed to be caught red handed out on the Hudson river pushing clay into a rock. Writing “ART?” next to what I’d created was my way of apologizing. It was like saying “Yeah, I know this sucks but is it art?”. After he left, I decided “You know what, screw it. Let people look at this thing and make up their own damn minds about what it is.” I pulled off “ART?” and re-photographed. In the end, it’s enough that I spent time creating. What I ended up with was something that is uniquely my own. Whether or not it’s “ART” (or good “ART”, or bad “ART”) is immaterial. I made something, and that’s enough.