Art for Art’s Sake

Oak + Fort top (c/o)
Oak + Fort jeans (c/o)
Aldo boots
Vintage necklace (similar)
Mejuri ring (similar)
Linjer rings (c/o) (similar)
Mango earrings
Location: Osborne Village – Winnipeg, Manitoba

I’ve loved art for as long as I can remember. And I’ve always had strong opinions about it. As a toddler, I flatly refused to colour inside the lines in my colouring books, prefering to scribble all over the blank designs on each page in the shades that inspired me in the moment. (That I’ve grown up to love modern and abstract art should surprise no one.) At four, I asked for my first paint set, a small box of round watercolour paints with a small plastic and vinyl hair brush. I never painted anything approaching a masterpiece with them – or even anything that showed much talent. But I loved them.

I love art, but by the time I reached my teens, I felt confined by the narrow definition of what constituted good art. I couldn’t accept the idea that some forms of art, like painting and sculpture, were considered more worthy than others, which require equal talent and mastery, like fashion design. The fact that creating something beautiful was not enough to make someone a true artist did not align with my inate sense that beauty in creation, not the kind that is a genetic accident, is not frivolous but strategic, designed to bring people much needed (and desired) joy.

So I never took an art class. I chose media studies and extra history electives and graphic design instead. By the time twelfth grade came around, I’d taken every class available but two: art and economics. In that scenario, art became the obvious choice.

The six months that I spent making David Hockney-inspired collages and experimenting with pastels in Mrs. Kirkwood’s classroom made me regret my choices. Compared to my classmates, I was both inexperienced and untalented. But Mrs. Kirkwood was relentlessly encouraging despite that, and although it’s rare that I stop to consider just how much she influenced me in that half a year, I realise now that much credit for the return of my love for art belongs to her. I still love things that are beautiful just for the sake of being beautiful – and my time in twelfth grade art class helped me to understand there is nothing wrong with that, because there is no wrong way to love and appreciate art.

There is no wrong way to love anything. No pleasure that should come with associated guilt.

I still see fashion as art. In fact, some of my favourite museum exhibits combine classical art with fashion design, like Balenciaga: L’Oeuvre au noir at the Musee Bourdelle. (The fact that Bourdelle is my favourite sculptor, with Brancusi coming in a close second, didn’t hurt.) The clothes we choose to wear say as much about who we are as the art we choose to decorate our homes. In both art and fashion, I crave the kind of simple elegance that makes a statement without creating a distraction. Since I don’t have an overflowing bank account, I mostly have to settle for books about my favourite artists instead of their original artworks. But since writing is an art in itself, I almost don’t mind.

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