What is Art? 

I took a small metal shop one semester, and although I could not continue taking it, my instructor left me with a great piece of advice when dealing with art that I don't think I'll ever forget. It was the first day of class and he asks the class, "What is art? What is craft?" 

There were mumbled responses of things like freedom of expression, of how art is everything and nothing, and while these definitions are not wrong, the instructor had a different one for us. Art is a language. It conveys messages, feelings, and ideas, just like our speech does. More specifically, he told us art is a nonverbal, typically visual, language (but then you get into things like performance art and that definition gets a little warped, so I find it best to grace over that form for now); craft, though sometimes confused with art, does not always have a message with it. Craft is what you call your studies in a sketchbook that only meant to try and capture that stranger's profile, or the scales a musician practises on to warm his fingers up. But art, in its truest, most modern form, will inspire something inside of a viewer. 

I do find myself calling works by any renowned artist a piece of art anyway, though I am not sure what messages or ideas people like Jackson Pollock convey, so my definition does not always pass the test.

~Jasmen Vivar