Attention as a creative act

How looking can be an art form

Hello from the dissertation desk¹,

I come to you today with a question: What is art?

A big question, eh? If we were conceptualizing ART in a PhD dissertation, we’d need to pour through centuries of scholarship, debates, and philosophical reflections to situate our definition - with proper citations. But I’m not asking for a thesis. I’m asking you, as the expert of your own lived experience:

What is art?

I’ve been asking myself this question a lot recently. My life right now is a PhD sandwich between slices of motherhood. As I PUSH to finish my Museum Studies dissertation in this final stretch, there is not much energy / time / attention left over to fully inhabit my creative self and make anything.

On a family vacation earlier this month, I let myself detach from work completely. In that space of rest, I found myself picking back up my practice of looking at life with the same gaze I would use with art in a museum.

It started with the wavy lines of flower stems in a grocery store. I stopped in my tracks, overtaken. The whole world shrank down to the size of me responding to the flowers, while that experience flooded my entire body. And, somehow, all the movement of that encounter with aliveness felt still and grounded - like a deep breath, a 'yessss', a 'wow'.

Artistic encounters, for me, are numinous experiences².

Looking at [shadows] like art. Photo by the author.

But are these moments art?

Are shadows dancing on the sidewalk a work of art? The light of the moon marking bright stripes on the bathroom wall through the blinds? The red of a tomato on the kitchen counter?

Yes, and no.

Yes, beauty and meaning and stories and textures and aliveness course through the physical world in mysterious and awe-inspiring ways.

But also, no. In these moments, I don’t think the ART comes from everything in the world being inherently, automatically, a work of art. My working definition of ART is the act of putting tangible form to the intangible.

Art is action.

Art happens when form is secreted from process.

So, when we look at our lives like art, we become artists of experience. The creative act is the attentive gaze. The tangible form is the response in our selves: the emotions taking place in our bodies, the rhythms of our breathing, the meanings made, the stories birthed.

Attention can be a form of art-making.

Looking at [IKEA] like art. Photo by the author.

Why does this matter?

(Because matter it does.)

The practice of looking at our lives with care and curiosity is an act of self-compassion. If “attention is a form of love” (A.O. Scott), then treating the textures of our daily lives as ART is an entryway to loving ourselves in the life we are currently living. When we speak ART over our lives, even here, we teach ourselves that this love-for-self is unconditional. In sickness, and in health. In pain, and in pleasure. In freeze, and in flow. As Toko-pa Turner writes, “Eventually we must take our life into our arms and call it our own”³. This is the work of self-belonging.

When we are bombarded with messages that our lives are insignificant or not-enough or displeasing, calling our lives ART is a revolutionary act.

One afternoon during my family vacation, my child had a meltdown. He tore up the train tracks weaving across the carpet and smashed Magna-tile towers into square smithereens. This moment did not feel like art. It felt messy and shameful. I felt pain seeing my kid in distress. I felt guilt that I hadn’t been attuned enough to help him regulate before emotions boiled over. I felt frustrated that my plans for the afternoon had been derailed. I felt distress in my own body that would need quiet space to regulate.

And then, right after my child had settled down, the sun moved across the sky into her evening position hitting the solar-powered “Rainbow Maker” crystal suctioned on the window. Tiny rainbows danced across the room, skipping along the lines of train tracks, bringing playful movement into the calm after the tantrum.

I paused, then walked across the room to look closely at the debris covered in rainbows. I wondered how many caregivers of small kids were looking at variations of this exact same sight, across the world, across time. This experience wove me and my child into the fabric of human experience. Tantrums, boiling-over feelings, conflicting mother-emotions, the work of meeting needs. These are not deviations from a life-well-lived. These are the tangible textures of that life.

Here we are, alive and living, let’s look close so we can really see it.

Looking at [tantrum aftermath] like art. Photo by the author.

Here are some creative prompts to think about as you practice looking at your own life like art:

• What is ART to you?

• How do you know when you are having an artistic encounter? In a museum, in daily life?

• What do experiences with art feel like in your body? What happens to your breath? Your heartbeat? Your arms and legs? Your thoughts? How do you move?

• Does anything come up for you around the idea of being the one who decides what ‘counts’ as art? Do you believe you have that authority?

I would love to hear your perspective ✨ Share your thoughts here in the Substack comments or on social media (tag me @marinagrosshoy and use the hashtag #lookingatlifelikeart so I can respond!).

If you know someone who needs encouragement to look at their daily life and call it ART, please forward this email, share it on social media, or restack it. I have big plans for this space as I finish my PhD, and the biggest way to support me is by sharing my writing - thank you!

Wishing you wide eyes and an open heart.

Warmly,

1. Yes, still at the dissertation desk… But not for long! (Much) more on this later.

2. For my fellow Museum Studies nerds, K.F. Latham writes beautifully about numinous experiences in museums: https://ummsp.rackham.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Latham-working-paper-FINAL-pdf.pdf

3. Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home