Blog Post #1

For me, reading “The Whole Ball of Wax” was unlike anything I have ever read for a class at Loyola.  I tried to go into this article with an open mind and that was definitely a good idea.  As an accounting major, it is hard for me sometimes to think abstractly and outside of the box.  For instance, in the first paragraph I disagreed with one of the statements that was about art having the ability to change the world.  The article states that most people in the art world would agree with this statement but I find myself disagreeing with this.  I feel that art has the ability to change how people feel about the world, but I do not think it has the ability to literally change the world we are living in.  However, with that said this article is definitely helping me to see that art is part of the whole ball of wax in a figurative sense.  Art can be seen in all parts of life and I am starting to realize that eventually art can make an impact. 

            Another aspect of the article that I had trouble grasping was about how art is about experience and not understanding.  For me, I think of a piece of art and immediately try to understand its purpose and meaning, I do not think of art as an experience.  One part of the article that really opened my eyes and taught me something I didn’t know was about how art can be “a vacation from the self.”  The article states that art is a journey that can help you reflect and create consciousness, which was really refreshing for me to hear.  Sometimes with my major and my past internships, it is hard to think of anything else besides crunching numbers and my usual math related objectives.  I believe that if I think of art in this manner throughout the remainder of the semester then I will get a lot more out of this class than I ever thought I would.

            The last part of the article that I would like to comment on was about how art can be compared to the differences between cats and dogs.  I think this metaphor is not only applicable to art but also can be related to life in general.  It is easy to think of life in only one perspective, but it is important to remember that life can be viewed through so many lenses.  The article states that to understand the cat, which I take that as understanding art, you have to be able to grasp this nonlinear, indirect, circuitous communication.  This was very interesting to me and showed me another way to view the world.  Overall, after reading this article I have a better grasp on what art is in a big picture sense.  To me, art is a way of expressing how you view the world through your creative capabilities.  There is no one definition of art, I believe that it is whatever you want it to be.  Someone’s version of art could be completely different than another person’s, whether it be a picture, a good song, or a landscape.