This project is built on a methodological foundation that has pillars in a number of fields. My knowledge of these fields is primarily derived from my doctoral work as an art historian. Because I studied the history of mental hospitals and the cultural geography of mental illness, I also investigated social psychology and the history of psychiatry. A lot of this knowledge is field-specific and lies outside the experience of non-academics. Some of it is esoteric in nature, and that’s the sort of thing I picked up on my own, studying the occult in relation to 19th century illusionism (everyone needs hobbies). In some quarters, these concepts are viewed as pointlessly lofty, but I believe that all knowledge has a point and with only slight effort can be conveyed and received in a way that makes sense and matters to the people who encounter that knowledge.

I’ll begin this overview of theory by discussing art history and the questions of what constitutes art and who can call themselves an artist. I’ll then give a short overview of two ways we can understand and shape our beliefs about ourselves. Finally, I’ll conclude with a very brief summary of why what we do with our time matters. By the time we get there, we’ll be in deep waters, but we’ll wade out together.

One of the reasons that I love art history is because it is a practice of understanding history by moving around in the shadows of the past. Rather than looking at what is illuminated as the reality of institutions, people, or communities represented in public documents, art history is uniquely suited to assess socio-cultural slight of hand and to pick apart norms. It offers a way to understand the foreign reality that is the past on a deeply complex human level (see David Lowenthal’s The Past is a Foreign Country). Art history is the realm in which I learned to look for the stories we tell ourselves about our world, and to ask about how those stories work and for what purpose.

Without detouring into the methodologies of art history and the conflicts among their adherents, I will summarize by saying that some approaches are concerned with the more aesthetic and some are concerned with the contextual. While the art itself is often assessed in contrast or in harmony to other issues, the question of: “What is Art?” obviously has relevance. It is a delightful question to bring up in a room of art historians. I promise: none of them will groan or leave immediately (Spoiler: Yes. Yes, they will do both of those things). The question goes over a bit better for them than it does for artists themselves. I promise that every artist who has said “everything is art” on a date or at a party is full of self-hatred and cries themselves to sleep.

The origin of art history lies in aesthetics, and so I begin this brief overview with Immanuel Kant’s work. Kant, known for his simplistic and delightful writings on morals (They are neither. No one likes Kant. Not even Kant), stated in his 1790 essay, “The Critique of Judgment” that art is defined by being beautiful. According to Kant, what is beautiful is true and is thus art (G.W.F. Hegel was in agreement with Kant and wrote in his 1835 essay “Philosophy of Fine Art” that the ideal is what defines beauty and that art is whatever represents that ideal in a concrete way).

In 1935, Martin Heidegger wrote “The Origin of the Work of Art,” in which he differentiated between mere things, equipment, and art, and defined art as being a representation of the truth without necessarily being beautiful. Heidegger used a van Gogh painting of boots to support his claim. Although he was eloquent in his description of this painting, it is not clear why he thought he knew the reality of these boots.

The art historian Meyer Schapiro was concerned with just that issue, and wrote the essay “The Still Life as Personal Object – A Note on Heidegger and van Gogh” in 1968 to ask exactly what Heidegger thought he was writing about (this should give you some idea of how much Heidegger annoyed Schapiro. While he was still alive when Schapiro published this essay, 33 years is a hell of a gap between one man writing about boots and another man asking about those boots). Schapiro’s critique boiled down to: Heidegger, sir, you have no idea whose boots those are! You sentimental fool!

The final essay in the trilogy of responses about these goddamn boots, whoever they belonged to, was written by Jacques Derrida, who, like Kant, is known for the clarity of his writing (that is absolutely a joke just to make myself feel better about having read a sizeable portion of Derrida in my life). Derrida’s essay, “Restitutions of the Truth in Pointing [‘Pointure’],” written in 1978, is not particularly necessary to this conversation, except that Derrida does what he always does, which is complicate language until we’re all wrapped around in a knot of confusion. The purpose of this knot was to illustrate (I think) that for all of their posturing, neither Heidegger nor Schapiro can use language to grasp or project truth, not even when describing something as simple as shoes.

The conversation about what constitutes art began with critics, grew with art historians, was enshrined by museum curators, and continues to infect creators with queasy guilt to this day. A depressing amount of people with talent and interest resist calling themselves artists. My point in sharing the above provenance of “What is Art?” is only this: no one knows. If anything, I’m in (regrettable and embarrassing) agreement with Derrida, who explained in his writing on differánce that the slip and slide between word and meaning eradicates the possibility of assuredly calling anything anything. So, hurrah! We’re free!

Now the trouble is that if nothing means anything, aren’t we trapped in a terrible nihilistic loop of emptiness? Not really. Derrida lies in extreme opposition to structural thought in his land of deconstruction (and his writing proved it over and over), but we can take a little breather in the middle ground of post-structural thought with another dead French guy: Michel Foucault.

Foucault is most often referred to as a historian, but most historians would tell you he wasn’t very good at it. He cherry-picked his sources and created elaborate theories from very meager archival evidence. I think it’s more apt to call Foucault a theorist who used history as a springboard, with hit or miss results (if you’re interested in a critique of Foucault that is insightful and honors his contributions, I recommend Michel de Certeau’s “Black Sun of Language,” an essay that can be found in his book, Heterologies).

As someone who studied the history of mental hospitals, I have spent a great deal of time reading Foucault. For the purpose of this project, I made use of one of his essays that was only tangentially related to his broad and deep analysis of institutions: “The Technologies of the Self,” which began its life as a series of lectures at the University of Vermont in the early 1980s and was eventually published in 1988 through the University of Massachusetts Press. The summary of these lectures is that, throughout history, human beings have used different mechanics and practices to produce and uphold their selfhood. At one point, we used letters, at another, diaries, at another, confessions to holy orders. This concept is still relevant to researchers today, a number of which have asked how social media acts as a technology of the self.

I have built this project, in part, on the premise that artistic creation is a technology of the self, and that engaging with an artistic practice in a flexible yet consistent way can improve the stability and quality of individuals’ sense of self. One of the primary factors in transforming a technology of the self from a norming method of social control into a healthy, self-driven practice, is removing the aspect of judgement from the process. Without a higher authority to appeal to, the question of “is this thing I made art?” dies away and we can all go about our day feeling a bit better.

But what if we don’t actually feel better? What if we don’t know if we can do it? What if we don’t know if we deserve to try to do it? While it is tempting to beat self-doubt over the head with the wise (but, let’s face it, often confusing words) of philosophers, this is where we’ll take a detour into psychology to learn from Albert Bandura.

Bandura, who was a professor at Stanford for 57 years, made significant contributions in developmental, educational, and social psychology (there aren’t many times when the phrase “significant contributions” undersells the impact of one dude, but this is definitely one of them). For this project, I was influenced by his concept of self-efficacy, which Bandura developed as a core concept in his social cognitive theory. Self-efficacy refers to a person’s belief in their ability to accomplish tasks or goals and directly affect the world around them. A person with high self-efficacy perceives obstacles as temporary, mistakes as learning opportunities, and change as growth. A person with low self-efficacy perceives obstacles as permanent, mistakes as indicators of failure, and change as threat. Unlike your astrological sign, your self-efficacy position can be used to clearly determine your future behaviors in an array of settings and, it should not be surprising to state, the people with high self-efficacy fare better in nearly every aspect of life.

While telling people their future is a neat party trick, the arguably more important aspect of social cognitive theory is: how do we improve self-efficacy? I’m not qualified to drag you into the underworld of nature vs nurture and the quagmire of whether anyone believes any of us can make a difference (how you respond internally to that last sentence should tell you everything you need to know about your own self-efficacy). But, Bandura’s social cognitive theory as a whole is an indicator that when a person’s environment includes leaders who model a behavior and mentors who will guide learners in that behavior, that person can learn how their beliefs about their abilities impact what they can accomplish. Like many ingrained beliefs we hold as we grow up, our self-efficacy can feel like a clear-eyed observation of reality, when in fact it changes how we view reality. The depth of its impact is so great, it literally alters our world and ourselves, doing so with such swiftness that we confuse the direction of causality.

Being an artist is inherently about transforming reality, and being conscious (to the best of our abilities) of our biases—including our self-efficacy—is an ethical requirement for such an alchemical power. As discussed above, which final products constitute art is a perpetual question. I would argue that, for artists, it’s a pointless question and we can set it aside. Not because of the hacky answer that everything is art, but because the object that occurs as a result is of no consequence compared to the activity of the making (please note that, in this context, the word “object” refers to a product, whether that product is a piece of music, a clay pot, or a love letter). The action is the invocation that alters reality. The object is just it’s shadow.

Action is the expression of will and clear will results in clear action and vice versa. To understand the value of will, we can turn to Søren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard was a theologian, philosopher, and the father of existentialism; he had very little time for human weakness and emotional ridiculousness (this is an understatement. The man spent his short life of 42 years writing with such intensity that he had no time at all for human entanglement, producing so many texts under so many names that it is hard to imagine he even had time to eat). He is perhaps not the best role model for anyone who wants a balanced existence. If, however, you lean toward the monastic: Kierkegaard is the guy for you.

Although the average person cannot live in accordance with Kierkegaard’s strictness (something he knew), artists can learn from his short book, Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing. In the text, Kierkegaard explores how people perceive the world, how they interact with God, and how they become lost in the noise of reality (note that the phrasing of “noise” as opposed to “signal” is mine, not Kierkegaard’s. He used more eloquent phrasing than I am capable of). By willing only one thing with great clarity, he states that we can clear away that noise and find harmony in our existence. For example, an artist who wants to make good art but also wants to be rich but also wants to be famous but also wants to get laid, is not willing one thing. They are lost in the noise. Purity of heart comes from willing only one of those things, without secretly willing two or more.

Kierkegaard would have been horrified to know how closely his discourse on will aligns with the writings of magician Aleister Crowley who stated, “Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” (see The Book of the Law (Liber AL vel Legis), published in 1909. Kierkegaard would’ve disliked him not so much because of Crowley’s godlessness but because of his hedonism). Often misunderstood as “do whatever the hell you want,” this phrase actually means that you should act in accordance with your will, as action is what creates change in the universe.

All action impacts the universe. Only through will can we guide that action. Only through action can we hone our will. You cannot set aside reality through inaction; inaction is only a mirage. When we choose to create art, we choose to look at the universe and let it look at us. This is a radical position to take, placing ourselves in communication with existence. Such a thing is far more valuable than any question about how well we can draw or write, how popular we may be, or how rich we may become. It strips away the pointless and allows us to engage in what really matters.