I will live and be art.

I confess, open arts intimidated me just a little. As a humanities professor I teach, among other things, appreciation of the arts. I lament that my students don’t always even bother to participate and really` seek out opportunities to experience in the art that surround us everyday.

Yet, I too am guilty of preferring to stay home, comfortable in the narrow range of experiences to be had within my apartment walls. I have fair reason for this preference and also a general anxiety that I am limiting my rewards. The potential joy of engagement with that which is out there.

Against this argument I propose to work during the open arts session. Rather than use this interval to drastically change my life (and lord forbid go anywhere!), I instead intend to more fully submerge myself in to the art of my own life- I wish to watch the memoir of my motherhood play out in real time before me and also, more deliberately craft the art that is my life.

From the palette of my wardrobe to the arrangement of my books and perhaps even the tastes that pass over my tongue I intend to pay closer attention to the aesthetics that surround me and deliberately manipulate them to my liking. Engaging directly with the bits I don’t and challenging myself in the process. This is much more than interior decorating or out with the old in with the new. It is a part of the creation and recreation of the self. A living art form, rarely examined outside of the private sphere.  (blogs aside)

Secondly, I am continuing my yearly mission to read the equivalent of a book a week. Literature remains an art and thus will continue to have a prominent place in my open arts journey this Spring.

Lastly, my goal is to more formally acknowledge the other artistic endeavors that occupy my time and cohabit my world. Music, games and other art forms that surround me constantly yet go largely unacknowledged or sadly, sometimes unrecognized.

It took me a moment to gain the clarity I needed to begin this adventure in earnest, but with clear intention I now set sail more deliberately to seeks the treasures that await me. Right here. I will live and be art.