Art is authentic. It communicates, it calms, it vanquishes…it can do just about whatever you need it to. That is why ART is truly crucial to all people even if they are often unaware of it. Sometimes people feel they “own Art” as if they were the first person to put paint on a child’s fingertips or the first person to paint x, y or z. Art will not be owned like that. It’s too big to be contained. It belongs to the human spirit, it belongs to us all. Art is something people have been doing from the beginning of time. Art is a gift for all people to use and express as they will. Life demands artful release constantly. Those of us really ‘tuned in’…know this with every fiber of our being and we enjoy watching it play out DAILY. Before words there was ART. After words there is ART that needs no words. ART is infinite.

Ability does not always matter in ART. The process of working out your emotions through artful mediums is cathartic. ART is even prophetically placed into the very word which means emotionally purging. Purging your emotions through ART is always good even when it’s bad. Thus, there really is no bad ART.

Many ART projects are so immense that vast amounts of people must be employed to work on them as apprentice artisans carrying out the piece, project or performance. A master Artist may have designed the entire concept yet many workers fill out the vision. Think about bridges and amazing architectures throughout the world and history, epic artful productions of all types that require armies of artisans and art apprentices working together.

A big crew indeed!

People are enlisted to help Artistic dream become reality. That is awesome and an authentic truth that we all know. Some artists work in pairs and in teams. We see this often at our AutismHWY.com Chalk Festival Event every year! Disabled Artist’s sometimes need facilitation and perhaps collaboration to bring their dream to reality. Others are able to create completely independently, however may need and/or appreciate supports marketing their ART.

My Chalk design becomes….

…this digitalized ART with Rachel’s help!

There is no shame in artful collaboration. I work with an Art partner. The very talented Rachel Walker is my Art partner and illustrator. I create Art designs and lay-outs and Rachel facilitates them into digital versions we can use, print and distribute into coloring books, pages and decal forms. People should be aware of how many people work together to create the ART they may purchase or support. This way they will not be upset to realize that an Artist they believed was creating the ART all alone…simply was NOT.

They will not feel deceived or fooled into believing that one person is solely responsible for the ART which they love.

Facilitated ART is fabulously valid and very much needed as stated above for many great projects to reach fruition but, what becomes problematic is when facilitated ART is marketed and sold as independent ART.

If an Artist uses supports to create their masterpieces that is nothing new in the world of ART. It is in actuality, quite common. It’s simply not authentic to deny this ART truth. If you purposely lie about the process of the Artist in order to create emotional attachment to the ART, you have no integrity. When ART is used to manipulate it’s purchaser’s, fans and admirers it is a sad day in the ART WORLD. Real Art does not need that type of manipulation. Authentic Art just IS. It happens by coming from within and it expresses itself outwardly in oh so many glorious ways. Created authentically by one individual or by any number of individuals in artistic collaboration. It is not machinated to be sold as something it is not.

Earlier I claimed that there was no bad ART. Perhaps, I will re-think this concept that indeed there is bad Art. The kind of ART sold as a lie. Art created to manipulate others by falsifying who created it and/or how they created it. Art sold with sugary sweet lies.