(This is an updated version of a post from the archive of my old blog.)
After graduating from college I taught art to high schoolers for several years, and my favorite days were always the days we talked about the Impressionists. There are lots of reasons I love Impressionism, but without going into an art history lesson, one of the things that has always resonated with me is that they believed art didn’t have to be about great moments in history, or kings and queens, or Greek gods, or Important Stuff in general: it could depict everyday objects and normal people. Elevating everyday life to art. Yes!
You might see where I’m going with this. I’m a big fan of purposefully curating beautiful MOMENTS and trying to be creative every day, and things like Instagram really encourage that. Not everyone uses Instagram in this way obviously (that’s ok, too–keep the selfies coming!), but there are so many people doing beautiful, inspiring, small, quiet, artful things with this little app. Encouraging everyone, “artist” or no, to do something creative in their every day lives is such a positive & healthy thing.
In a world where social media isn’t always the most positive place to hang out, Instagram’s less-talk-more-pictures approach is refreshing and inspiring outlet: it reminds me to look for art in the every-day. It reminds me art can happen in a fleeting moment and inspires me to try to capture those moments & share them, too. I think Monet would have dug it.
And lastly, I feel like it can be easy to get a bit snobbish about cameras, but who was it that said the best camera is the one you have with you? I think it was Chase Jarvis. Well, in any case, they were right in my book. The most important thing is the eyes you have to look at the world, not which camera/professional SLR/smartphone you have to record it with.
I’d love to get a glimpse of how you see the world! Please leave your own Instagram links in the comments, and you can check out my feed and follow me here.)
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