Fair warning: this will be my first official tangent. I don't pretend to be an expert on any subject, and certainly not what I'll write about on this site. I can rarely put together a meaningful string of words in person, so I'm looking at this space as my opportunity to collect my thoughts.

I saw some designers talk tonight about their work. The format was fairly typical in that they showed a series of slides, talking briefly about each. One idea that a couple of them mentioned was that they aren't artists. My gut reaction to this idea was to categorically deny it.

Since college, I've had a different view of what falls into the classification of Art. I read a book in college that was a series of interviews with artists. In it, one artist defined art simply as the act of making special, and this concept has always stuck with me. It covers every media you could possibly imagine, and really embodies the spirit of the creative process. The most important part of this definition—and this may be just the way I interpret it—is that art becomes Art merely by being identified as such. An artist can call it Art, and if she is the only one there, it's still Art. If somebody performs an act, if somebody is there to watch it, they can call it Art. It's a definition completely free of form, technical limitations or outside justification.

So when I'm in a museum, on the street, listening to somebody talk, I hear the phrase, "That's not Art." Every single time, it frustrates me. I may not really like the art. I may not think the art is even worth my time, but I'll never argue that it isn't Art.

I sincerely wish that more people could just forget the question of what is Art and what isn't. Admittedly, the Art establishment has created some of these barriers itself, but life is just more worthwhile when Art could be around any corner, waiting to surprise you.