Why do I make art?

This is a question that is very simple for me. I make are because I enjoy creating things that didn't exist before. I like creating things I consider to be beautiful and hopefully others do as well. I love nature and the graceful forms found in nature and I like to let them inspire me when I'm making art. I suppose that the main reason, however, is that it helps me communicate with people in a way that I never could with words. I'm usually a very shy and quiet person. I don't generally strike up conversations with people, even people I've known for years. But art forces me to come out of my shell. It gives me a subject that is safe and comfortable for me to discuss with other people. Actually, art is what has made me more outgoing over the years. I have my artwork to thank for all the friends I have made since leaving the safety of my established highschool friendships.
So I suppose it was a more complicated reason that I first realized.

art and why?

Why do i make art?
Because I love the things people say. When someone looks at something I make, they usually tell me something. Not just like hey whats up, or hey buddy, or hows it goin? Its actaully something very genuine and real. No matter what. People just seem to respond to art in a that way. It makes people tell you stories. Fantasies or what have you. It is a wonderful thing. Sometimes its an art theory. But they always seem to have something to say. It makes me very happy to see that i can spur such interesting conversation. In fact this is why i like art as a whole. It makes so much mystery and creativity in peoples lives. It brings joy and love to places where there is none. It can change an entire period of history. Look at Martin Luther and his voayage around europe to destroy art. I just love what happens in the response of people to art work that it dirves me to do more and more. The second people stop responding. I may possibly just stop making art... make nothing. Just enjoy the images I create in my head by myself.

Why do I make art? It is often asked, and difficult to answer in many cases. For myself, primarily because I have always loved to work with my own two hands, to have a direct relationship with materials and thus be an important part of an end result or product. I was led into the art making world at a young age, my interest formed around the importance of spatial relationships and unique forms. I feel as though I have always had this knack for seeing the unseen in everyday objects and settings. I use art to express my interest in those "interesting visuals", the hidden art forms that surround us. Many times I may express my interest in negative space by emulating negative space that I had originally seen in a landscape formed by trees, in a household product such as a blender, or in something rather industrial like train tracks cutting through a field. Lately I have taken interest in expressing my concern for our effect on our natural surroundings. I hope to include more natural materials and focus on both our destruction of nature and what we can do to reverse some of humankind's past misdeeds. So, why do I make art?--messaging--in order to communicate with out words. I make art to provide others with a view to the world that they may not have come across otherwise.

The Skull

Why do you make art?

Let's take it down to the bare bones: As opposed to all of the other things you could be doing with your life, why do you make art?

$4,000 Ashtrays and the value of Damien Hirst

I have been thinking more and more lately about how the value of a piece of art is determined and have come to the conclusion that the commodity in the equation is not the piece of art but rather the artist. Artist as celebrity or art as accessory. At this point it seems as though Hirst can create value out of anything. Ashtrays from his now-defunct restaurant just sold for $4,000 a piece. Hirst has become a commodity and an artifact all in one.
While I love his work I also question whether it is only death he speaks of. When i look at the work and hear the latest figures on what it cost for his little factory to turn out another piece I wonder if he is also making a sly commentary on what we value- and maybe that is the way we ward off death. If he keep making and the world keeps collecting and his name gets in the paper 10 times a week it creates a false sense of immortality- both for himself and the collector.
If it sells for his asking price of $100 million it will then be the single most expensive piece of contemporary art...what we buy says a lot about what we value. In this case it is not the meaning we value but the sensationalism. When people become consumers of art they finish the circle- by assessing value, they assess meaning which is what Hirst's art has become all about.

How much of Damien Hirst's "For the love of God" is really a continuation of his treatment of death and how much of it is purely a money making name game to gain even more notoriety? I see this piece as much more of an investment in his (and others) financial future than a work of art. -denk