The Center for Ecological Design - Anyone can make art

Anyone can make art

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life" - Pablo Picasso

Emily Nicolosi, PhD. May 2020.

Take a moment to consider: What is art? Who can make it? Where does it belong?

The lone artist in a sprawling studio comes to mind when contemplating who an artist is and where art is made. Image: Bonita LeFlore.

The first thing we’d like you to reconsider is the idea that art has to be made by professional artists. The (capital A) Artist- being a title that requires:

A rare talent, creativity, and vision
Training at an exclusive or elite institution
Fame or at least some local repute

Second, where does art get made? Artists make (capital A) Art...

In a studio
Alone

Now that the rare Artist has made Art in their fancy studio, where do we go to see it, and how do we know what it means? The Art that Artist creates generally is...

Difficult to understand, requiring professional interpretation
Locked up in a fancy museum

Do you ever feel confused, perhaps even lesser-than, walker through an art museum? Image: Selldorf Architects.

The advent of the DIY and Maker movement help to upend these conventional understandings of what art is, who makes it, and how we experience it.

People collab and co-learn at local makerspaces around the world. Image: Susan Brooks.

El Pulpo Mechanico, fire breathing art you can ride. Image: Scott London.

Anyone can be an artist. Every human carries within them a wealth of creativity, demonstrated daily by for example, the fact that each time you utter a sentence, you put new words together to form new thoughts and ideas. The advent of the DIY and maker movement, which places high value on the sharing of models, instructions and information, allows anyone anywhere to get the ‘training’ they need to make just about anything imaginable. As a result, artists are no longer a rare breed, as anyone can see in the abundance of makers on platforms like Etsy.

Artists (anyone) can make art anywhere, and together. The advent of subcultural events like Burning Man and its showcase of massive interactive art have helped to usher in a new way of making art: as a team. Art collectives like The Flaming Lotus Girls recruit anyone to come join, learn how to weld, and together make impressive fire-breathing sculptures. In Makerspaces, Hackerspaces, and Fab Labs around the globe, novices are learning how to use laser cutters and 3D printers. Heck, we made koro loko in our backyard without any “professional” help!

Our primary build location: our deck. Image: Author

Making fixes after a dry run in a friend's backyard. Image: Author

Bending metal in a parking lot. Image: Author

And where does all of this art go? Who is the audience? Part of the result of expanding who is an artist and how art is made means that more people have access to art. Handmade items on Etsy are affordable, if one doesn’t have the desire to join their local makerspace or art collective. Moving art into the people’s hands also means that art becomes more meaningful to those of us without art history degrees- art becomes something we can put our heads, hearts, and hands around.

Let’s go make some art!

Anyone can make art

Further Reading