Frequently Asked Questions

Artifacts are old things made by humanity, sometimes useful or beautiful or intelligently made.  Likewise, fine art is made with a purpose and with character from the time it was created.  

At any moment, each person’s life is similar in some ways but also different.  When each person looks at fine art and they have similar and different thoughts or feelings.  Some fine art accomplishes a noble purpose but not all.  Some artists become famous.  Typically art is valued way more after the artist dies. 

What is entertainment?  Whether tasteful and creative, repetitive and crass, the purpose of entertainment is to keep you looking, perhaps to buy something or evoke an emotion.

With art the purpose is often an open invitation to the viewer’s heart and mind.  But an invitation to do what? Getting a subtle sense, a message, a question feels more like stepping stones down a path.  Where the pathway leads really depends on the viewer’s background and own desires. 

Ever get bored or felt a film was too slow?  Over or under stimulation may be due to lack of variety.  Art does not always have a storyline. In a few seconds art can connect.

Most people do not hang a painting on the outside of the house.  Yes the painting would rot.  But also because people usually go outside to go somewhere, work,  or look at the landscape.  Similarly, fine art is hung inside the house or office because it is different from the wall in appearance. Art takes the viewer outside of their surroundings or outside of their typical viewpoint.   Art therapy is helpful for releasing trauma in children and from the unseen destruction.  Whereas photographs are helpful to assess observable destruction.

 Conversely, human expression releases  and increases the felt happiness such as with dance, painting, song and music.  Whereas  in my opinion, the receipts from dining out or  dirty wine glasses only document what occurred.  It is important to photograph and to remember the event.  But the photographs are not enough.  It is hard to say.  We rarely look carefully at faces in real life the way we look at photographs after the event.  Some married couples say they forget what their spouse looks like because they know who they are so well.  The relationship influences what is seen.  Perhaps this is why so often wall photos of family and friends are insufficient in spaces where people spend a lot of time.

As with any of the 5 senses, we all have visual experiences.  Consumers typically buy purposefully.  Some desire current events or history within the art.  People buy paintings that remind them of a person or a past event or place.   One person wants a painting to last 1,000s of years.  Another desires references to a culture, a style, a scene, a childhood, or colors of significance.  Art appreciation is personal and we can be confident that how others appraise an art work will be different from your own.   

A quote “If thou of fortune be bereft, and in thy store there be but left two loaves, sell one, and with the dole, buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.― John Greenleaf Whittier

The poet wrote of a flower but for you it may be something else.  A well fed soul has less stress. The leading causes of death are stress related.  So, perhaps the quote is good advice.

If purchasing the art causes more stress than not please do not buy it.  As human beings, we need food, sleep,  clothes, and shelter.  But perhaps our inner self has more than physical needs.   I have seen art hanging in hospitals and in gray walled cubicles.  The works were pondered and appreciated by more than the owner.  I encourage art hung in homes, a place where important things happen.  Home is a place of vital activities such as eating, conversations, and hugs to name a few.  There is work taking place which makes a house into a home.  Life can take place in the context of fine art or blank walls.

I do appreciate good decor, colors of sofas and walls harmonize.  Decorative art’s  function is to  fit or enhance the style of the room.  Fine art has more dimensions or layers of meaning.  For example, the decorative art may be a blue themed landscape.  The fine art may be a landscape too but the brushstrokes look like a storm and the color touches the starlit sky and the landscape, reminding many viewers of divine providence or hope during a difficult time.   

Depending on the artist, the answer may vary.  But you do not have to be an art historian; although history is illuminating for anyone willing to investigate it. The premise and background of the artist helps elucidate or at least hint at the purpose of the art. Ultimately, if after reading about the artist,  what you see is just a square on a page, then that painting may not be for you. Some viewers like the intuitive/unconscious messages and others like the ambiguity because they enjoy using their imagination every day.

Life can be a puzzle.  If you understand why things are the way they are, you may not yet have lived through some common life experiences: battles, pain, injustice, sickness, good or bad luck,etc. 

Fine Artists seldom paint only what they understand.  Using a visual medium, a creative work is made that not only describes but asks questions, or makes theories and conclusions.