The Everglow project started on January 29th with the composing of the cover music. It was finished on March 6th when signed. Then on the evening of March 7th at the Chippewa Vallery Museum (CVM), I did a public art presentation about Everglow to a not so full attendance of 5 paying people. Another artist and friend, Jeff Nelson, and our wives, were also presented. This art talk coincided with a tour of our group, EmptyWallsArt’s, currently on exhibit in their main gallery.

Part of my 9 page 25 minutes plus performance was my definition of what is art. Here is that description along with the lead up.

“Often over the years, I have read, searched, and found many legitimate meanings for “what is art?” But none of them felt definitive and easy to remember.

That changed in a serendipity moment.  ChatGPT is a new search engine that instead of giving links to different solutions, ChatGPT answers a search with words. I thought I would give it a test. Into its search box I typed this question: Is there a word to describe a word that has many different meanings?

The quick answer from ChatGPT was this: Yes, the word you are looking for is “Pull lis sa mus” A polysemous word is a word that has multiple meanings or senses. For example, the word “bank” can refer to a financial institution, a sloping landform near a body of water, or the act of tilting to one side.

Wow, I thought. That word describes the word Art. That lead to an awakening and my own memorable ever evolving definitive meaning of what is art versus what is craft. The current version of Scott’s definitive answer to What is Art is dated March 7th, 2023.

All art is craft
Not all craft is art.
The difference is,
 art was and always will be
an ever open revolving door
of perception.
While Craft is an
aesthetically pleasing product.“

(I always knew that putting what I do down in words was always worth the effort. That means the time spent putting together my presentation at CVM would enhance this arts documentation. That is why when a new thought of what else I should have said, or better clarified at the public reading, pops into my head, I have added a supplement to that presentation. Obvious everything is subject to be rewritten. These additional comments follow directly after my art definition.)

The question then becomes how to tell the difference. That is subjective, of course, for in my definition of What is Art I summarized it with one word ‘perception.”  To clarify  here are more words on the subject of What is Art. All creative people that first express their talents are creating art and therefore truly are artist. It is only later that as their skills develop and they realize that what they have created can now be sold for money, that is when part, or all their creatively, becomes transformed into creating a product to meet the demand. If the main focus of the artist becomes, what do I need to produce that people will buy, they and their art then becomes a product and therefore craft. Nothing wrong with craft. For aesthetically pleasing products sell at prices comparable to art. But the creator and their product no longer can be defined as Artist and Art.…………………………..(to be continued)

My final thoughts on this project starts with I like the size of this artwork. I can remove the two speaker boxes and therefore easily travel with the artwork in our SUV, a Toyota RAV 4. I also like adding the two Amazon prints to the artwork. The biggest surprise was how lively my color looked on my two versions of those two Van Gogh prints. On their own I thought the prints were fine, but now being a part of the artwork, they look kinda dull. I like the movement of this artwork’s notation flow from behind the canvas to 9 inches out from the wall. Finally, I like my musical composition. I am getting better with the arrangement, mixing and the sound, which points me in the right direction.

Scott Von Holzen