ART
Sometimes people can define art as a beautiful painting or a drawing hung on the wall of an art gallery. Dance and music are also great expressions of art. I envisioned art a few summer days back in everything that was everywhere. This essay is about what I saw, and how I got there on that very special day.
I decided to go for a bike ride through the oldest, and in my opinion, the finest neighborhoods in the city, searching for the best flower garden. It was going to be a contest, and I was the judge. I do not spend my weekends gardening, nor have I ever judged a garden contest before. I also have never sauntered casually on my bicycle. Using it for exercise and mountainous speed ventures was the norm. It seemed a relaxing idea, so out the door I went. Early in my mission, I discovered a residential garden of such magnitude, that it set the bar or standard that all other gardens would be judged, The garden had everything beautiful. It had color, shade or shadow, design, and a place. It was clean, and well manicured. It had meandering walks, with areas for contemplation. I stopped for a while and saw the garden and its diverse vegetation, as a piece or pieces of art. The rest of the day became an art show. I saw artistic gardens and flowers everywhere. I began to smell the art, it became intoxicating. I started to see art in the design of homes, and how the gardens were meant to compliment each other. I saw it in entrance ways, stain glass windows, and staircases. There was art in the majestic tree lined streets. I made it downtown to the river, where everything drains, including meandering bicyclists. Someone had designed the most unbelievable fountain, with marble walkways and hanging baskets of flowers. I talked with a few bystanders in the art gallery I was traveling, and noticed they had art all over them. It was in their jewelry, hair style, clothes, and a smile that remains etched in my mind. I stopped in a café for some nourishment, and also to come down a little bit. Unbelievably, the food was artistic, made by artisans, in a dinning room that defined decor in a unusual way. When I came back outside, I looked up and saw cotton ball clouds on a turquoise canvas, oh please stop!
I ended my trip, or art show, five hours later, buying the best garden in the city a first place award. I see art much more often today, and in many more places. Not like that special day, but much more than I had. Art is in everything, and is made by everyone. I would like to thank all the special artists who create art. Thanks.
PS: Slowing down could be the key to seeing art.
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There was a place, called Huntington Heights---overlooking the Ohio River, and, of course, Huntington, West Virginia. My grandmother lived there, along with several of my uncles, who, as adults, had not found lives of their own. None of this seemed untoward or out of place to me---then...I was only 4 or 5 years old, and did not understand the realms of unemployment or unemployability. But, I recall, even today, the gas-fired space heaters which (that?) heated the rambling house on the hill. Uncle Bill died, young, of ulcerative colitis. Grandpa had already left for California (I met him, many years later, but after a short visit, still did not know exactly why he left his family. I imagine he saw the futility of conditions he could never hope to change.)
There is some other dwelling there now...I have seen it from the Huntington waterfront. Probably owned by someone who has far more money than my grandmother's family ever had...just guessing, you see.
Life is not a work of art. It is only where we are for awhile---to pass on genes. This is biology. If that is art, sobeit.

?TO LIVE LIFE AS??
No one, and I mean statistically no one, ?looks at their life as a work of art? and makes any changes. Yes, some are proud of losing weight, exercising daily, quitting drinking, getting a degree, etc., but this has nothing to do with ?art.? Unless, the meaning of ?art,? like so many other philosophy words, has become so broadened as to have no meaning left whatsoever. Stick with the Greek philology and taxonomy and epistemology: like, say, ?beauty,? ?art? has two meanings: one which everyone (except nut-cases) knows is art, and a second which we can never really define, but which we reach into with dialogue.
More interesting to me, philosophically, is what is it about something called ?art? that we (whatever or whoever ?we? is), want to have connected to what we make of ourselves? I think it is about trying to communicate with, or be a member of, some elite social group (for all the reasons Nietzsche goes into). It is the attraction of a social elite that makes ?us? use the word ?art? to connect to ?our? life.
Hey, skip the ?art? part altogether: the attraction of the word is all empty self-satisfaction and is self-defined. If you want to improve yourself somehow, and you practice and exercise to do so, and you get results, that is ?success.? Congratulations! Attaching ?art? to it is foolish and egotistical. Art is something very different from all this.
Only philosophers believe in (and talk about) a human ability to ?look at one?s life,? and to use reason to 1. see ways to change it, and 2. change it.