What I Wish More People Understood Is That Art Is Like Cooking. Not Everyone Needs To Be A Great Chef

What I wish more people understood is that art is like cooking. Not everyone needs to be a great chef but everyone should cook to some extent. It is required to put fuel into our bodies, and we have to prepare that fuel. Same with exercise. A lot of people understand that regular exercise is part of a healthy life, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are athletes.

But it feels like most people don’t apply this perspective to art. Just because you are not an “artist” doesn’t mean that you should not be creating something that feeds your soul. It can be paper clip crafts, or doodles in your notebook, or knitting or LITERALLY WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WANT but please for the love of God do SOMETHING.

I think it starts with our art teachers exclaiming confidently that everyone is an artist. While I understand the intention behind it, I feel like it alienates people who don’t feel artistic, or aren’t particularly skilled and they end up frustrated. Not everyone is an artist in the sense that they have the mindset and technical skills to make meaningful pieces, but everyone should be a creator of some sort. It feeds that need in your soul, and just like food and exercise are part of a healthy body, so is art.

Human nature is to make crappy art and embroider crappy designs onto your clothes and finger paint and make a mess. All prehistoric cultures have instances of art dating as far back as tools and cooking, and it is just as vital to civilization as the things that keep us breathing. What’s the point of living without feeling alive.

untitled abstract acrylic on canvas board by Me (2021)

everyone becomes a child again at the fairgrounds

Inamorata

She smells of incense and roses She tastes of honey and milk She will help you find the Promised Land Between her thighs of silk She will bring you Heaven here on earth And you will fall down to your knees The next time that you pray to Gd, Only to realize it’s She, who holds your keys

untitled figure study pencil on paper by Me (2021ish)

A siren's hymn this blossom sung, As honey dripped off of her tongue, A serpent charmed, I stood entranced Beholding her Hypnotic dance

My eye had caught a glimpse of red, Of fabric swaying in the wind, And in the midst of heartache's throes, I saw her there, The desert rose

i say i miss summer, but sometimes i mean summer in 2006

“You're not a monster, I said. But I lied. What I really wanted to say was that a monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Latin root monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adapted by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaur, griffin, satyr.”

- from On Earth We Are Breifly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

untitled bug sketch pen on paper by Me (2024)