What is art?
This begins a new phase for zen posts. My partner/husband, Mark began this blog several months ago, and now I (Kim McGinnis) am stepping in. The theme of this site which is basically ‘anything zen related’ will still be that except with a little narrower focus. Zen Posts is now a part of our ecommerce site, A Zen Gift.
photo by Clark Little
A Zen Gift is our online store where for the past year we have been selling our products that ’support a zen lifestyle.’ For us zen is simple and as stress-free as possible, and we simply have attempted to fill our store with things that support this. Of course, this is a subjective thing… what Mark and I may find ‘zen’ others may look at our offerings and wonder what we were thinking.
But, that’s okay. As a matter of fact we have decided to renovate our store, A Zen Gift, and shift the focus from our cool zen products (which will continue to be available) to feature art work that has been created by skillful artisans. We have selected artists near our office base in Boulder, Colorado but we plan to eventually offer art featuring artists from all over the world.
This crossover renovation will take a couple of months to happen (hopefully sooner!), but please keep checking back with us, because it is going to be truly something special. Mark and I are perfectionists when it comes to the look and content of our sites and A Zen Gift is no exception.
The reason for this change is we felt the need to stretch our artistic muscles. In fact this year we decided to hand-make our gifts to family for Christmas. During the process of figuring out what we were going to create and how we were going to create it, we renewed our appreciation for art. And it made us realize that if we cherished hand made works of art, many of our customers would as well.
We feel very fortunate to live in such a creative and artistic community like Boulder, Colorado. When we sent out an announcement that we were looking for quality artisans to supply their works, we were overwhelmed with the uniqueness and refined touches in the art pieces these artists wanted to share with us (and you!).
So… that is the long explanation of the title of this post: ‘What is art?’
Personally, I feel art is crucial to an inspiring life. Real art moves us when we are in its presence because the artist’s essence is alive inside the work. And, once observed, it can reach out and touch us if we care to have that experience.
So that’s it for now. I will keep you posted on our progress, and give you more snippets of art that catches my eye and touches my soul.
Kim McGinnis, Zen Posts
