Why you should view your life as a work of art

When we acknowledge ourselves as works of art, we can better appreciate both our own beauty and that of others.

Everyone is an artist because your life is a work of art. I don’t mean that in a trivial way.

Even if you never pick up a paintbrush, write a word of poetry, or never learn the piano, you are still, simply by existing, an artist.

Consider;

If art is something that makes ourselves or others feel or think deeply, then our lives are our masterpieces—full of change and dynamism and tragedy and triumph.

If art is sharing emotion and meaning across time, then our interactions with friends and family and strangers are paintings we create every day.

If art is love and romance, then our relationships are drafts of great novels, with failed endings and heartbreaks and rewrites and abandoned drafts—and, if we are lucky, perhaps one or two masterworks.

If art comes from the context of what already exists, but changes with time, then cultures and generations are styles and schools, movements and trends. Our actions are a product of the society we live in, but we have a chance to innovate and change that very society, simply by existing.

And, if art can create nostalgia and longing—if we still remember that song from our youth, or that poem that struck us deeply, even years later—then even those we have lost are still with us, subtly shaping our lives.

***

The poetry of tradition…

My grandmother used to make these very small, pretzel shaped danish cookies called kringles. They were slightly crispy, but with a soft, buttery texture and sugar sprinkled on top. They took hours to make, but she had been given the tradition by her grandmother, who immigrated to America from Denmark. Only now that she’s gone do I realize how poetic and beautiful those cookies were. How they were a taste of her grandmother's homeland, a country with a language she couldn’t speak, a culture she only partially understood. When I was very little, I just saw them as cookies grandma made. But now I realize they were a form of love and care, passed down in my family for over 100 years. What is that but art?

She taught me that even baking a child a cookie can be an action which contains hundreds of years of love and art and tradition.

***

When we acknowledge ourselves as works of art, we can better appreciate both our own beauty and our own imperfection. (Of course, that imperfection can be beautiful). When we see our lives as art, we come to a profound realization:

We are both the artist and the artwork. The creator and the creation.

We are both shaped by what surrounds us, but have the beautiful ability to shape that reality.

***

…and the beauty of living with conviction

My other grandmother never let social pressure change her convictions. She married a Black man, my grandfather, in the 1940s even though this was illegal in over half of the country, and looked down upon by many Whites in the other half.

Choosing love, even when it’s hard—what is that but art?

She became a vegetarian in the 1950s, not because it was easy, but because she believed it was right. She attended protests to end segregation, and then protests to end the Vietnam war. Her life was difficult, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to just say she did what she believed in, or that she lived with conviction. By following her heart, each decision was not just an act of love, it was an act of art.

And from her life, I have taken the knowledge that truly difficult decisions contain within them immeasurable beauty. Amidst the racism my grandparents faced was love. Amidst pressure to say silent about injustice was a fierce determination that to help others, we had to have a more compassionate society.

The comfort–and challenge–of considering ourselves as art

When we take the implication that we are both art and artist seriously, we realize that others, too, are works of art just like us. And just as it is overly simplistic to call most art “good” or “bad,”so too is that true for people.

Understanding that our lives are works of art is not just a way to reframe our life in a positive way. It’s also a challenge to fully enjoy the time we have, and understand that, sometimes, great art comes from unexpected places.

But, you might ask–what about those who have experienced horrible trauma?

Events that occur in our lives can be anything but artistic—but that does not change the fundamental value we have— the deep, soulful truth that we are ourselves works of art. And because of that, we have the opportunity to live artistically, embodying the creativity and beauty that we admire in art and nature around us.

From a spiritual perspective, considering humans as one of God’s many artworks is fitting;

We are a reflection of divine creativity!

From an atheist’s perspective, existing and acting despite the inherent lack of meaning in the universe is deeply poetic;

There’s no reason anything is here, but here we are!

My time in Hong Kong

I hated high school in Charlottesville, so I went to University 8,000 miles away–all the way in Hong Kong. I knew nobody there, but I didn’t care. The sense of loneliness I had at home hurt, but it enabled me to have a sense of adventure going to a totally new place. In Hong Kong, everything happened: My first love, my first heartbreak. University, new friends, happiness, betrayals. And things I never imagined, like the time I walked in a Gucci fashion show, or when I stayed up all night in Repulse Bay until the sun rose and elderly Hong Kongers began their sunrise swims. But my visa wasn’t renewed, and the sense that a place I had called my home was slipping away from me has never really left.

But it was beautiful to live amidst another culture, which helped me understand that, for so many decisions in life, there is no truly right answer. Each culture has its own style and history, and each person interprets their culture in their own unique way. And those experiences encouraged me to write words and songs, in my own little way, shaping the world around me.

I’ve come to realize that my life was not a story of triumph or tragedy. There was no consistent narrative, except—like everyone else—it was one long and winding, and somehow all too short story, existing with no rhyme or reason, except as a piece of art. It was a truly special, unique story, and in that way, my life—my work of art—is like everyone else’s.

Sometimes there is no clear narrative. Things just exist. They are beautiful but flawed. They are art.

***

We may be born in different cultures, or speak different languages, or practice different religions, but we are all painting on the vast canvas of human experience. No matter where we are from, where we are born, or when we die, we are stitches in the great human story. And the human story is an artistic one, because no matter how much science or technology changes us, there is that fundamental soulful core of experience we all have.

A drawing someone made of me, all those years ago. I’m still grateful.

Matsuo Basho, writing his travel diaries and poetry in 17th century Japan, speaks to me deeply, even though we lived in different cultures, time periods, spoke different languages and had different religions. His nomadic trip across Japan encapsulates beauty, adventure, the importance of friendship, and the transience of existence. By writing about his life, he ensured the artwork that he lived was itself preserved as art we can all read.

And through fragments of his life, through the life of my grandmothers, and the lives of countless others, my life has been shaped and influenced into the artwork it is today–imperfect but beautiful, forever a work in progress.

Taken in totality, human civilization is not an achievement of engineering or science or economics or law. It is a vastly complex, contradictory, sometimes painful, yet deeply beautiful work of art.

And your life is too.

If you want to support Poetry Culture you can subscribe, check out our merch at poetryculture.com/shop, or forward this article to a friend!

Poetry Culture was started by Alexander Webb, a freelance writer with clips at the New York Times and National Geographic. He releases music as Lonely Singles.