Art is Creation

As a senior in the fine art department at Brigham Young University–Idaho, all students were required to take the dreaded Readings class—a 400-level art theory course involving two thick textbooks and centuries of philosophy.

Art students have a reputation for being the “non-academic” type, taking so-called mickey-mouse courses. I can say with confidence that there were no such courses in the fine art department. There was no “A for effort.” Competition was stiff, expectations were high, and if you didn’t put in the hours—if you couldn’t draw—you didn’t pass.

Naturally, there were strong peer opinions about which professor to take this course from and which to avoid. Unfortunately, the only section that fit my schedule was the one everyone warned me against. Since it was required for graduation, I told myself I could handle a difficult course—and that “boring,” like beauty, was in the eye of the beholder. I braced myself and enrolled.

To my own surprise, I loved it.

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Learning What Art Is (and Isn’t)

Yes, the workload was heavy. Keeping up with dense readings—Aristotle’s theories on what is art, among others—was not light work. But the intellectual payoff was worth the effort. I found the discussions fascinating.

The classroom itself was a long, narrow lecture hall. The professor jokingly referred to sections of seating by grade level. “We’ve heard from the A students in the front,” he’d say. “Let’s hear from one of the C students toward the back.”

It was painfully obvious when someone hadn’t done the reading, and I was determined not to be that student. I didn’t sit in the front—it hurt my neck to crane upward—but I sat close enough to stay engaged. It quickly became clear that what I gained from the class depended entirely on what I put into it. Participation mattered. Preparation mattered.

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Competing Philosophies of Art

Throughout the semester we explored many philosophies of art:
art as idea, art as process, art as expression, art as beauty, art as nature, and more. We encountered these ideas through the writings of artists, historians, and critics across centuries.

I found myself agreeing with pieces of many philosophies, but I couldn’t commit fully to any single one the way some artists did—advocating fiercely for the ideology that defined their particular movement.

So I began asking myself: What is art to me?

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Art as Creation

My answer didn’t come from an artist or a critic, but from someone I believe to be a prophet of God. In an address to the women of the world, Dieter F. Uchtdorf spoke of the divine nature of creativity:

“The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul… Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment.”

That idea resonated deeply with me.

Jack Foster, in How to Get Ideas, quotes James Webb Young (A Technique for Producing Ideas):

“An idea is nothing more nor less than a new combination of old elements.”

Similarly, Jacob Bronowski, in his essay The Creative Mind, bridges the philosophies of art as idea and art as creation when he writes:

“Works of art are explorations… of a hidden likeness [between two unlike elements]… This is the act of creation, in which an original thought is born.”

Creation, then, is not ex nihilo—it is discovery, synthesis, and transformation.

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The Shared Act of Creativity

One of the great joys of creating art is sharing it with others who appreciate it. Bronowski goes on to say:

“This view of the creative act… gives a meaning to the act of appreciation. In the moment of appreciation we live again in the moment when the creator saw and held the hidden likeness… We do not merely nod over someone else’s work. We re-enact the creative act… In that instant—when the mind recognizes meaning—the heart misses a beat.”

That moment of shared discovery is what makes art powerful. It is not passive consumption. It is participation.

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If you’d like to read more about how these ideas shape my work, you can find my Artist’s Statement here.