However, when they finish, the work is destroyed in a ritual which sweeps it into a bag for disposal into a river to spread power and peace throughout the world. They often use surgical masks to avoid even a breath disturbing the piece. Dul-tson-kyil-khor is what they do, taking days or weeks to pour minute patterns of colored marble powder into intricate designs using tiny metal cones called chakpur. For over 2,000 years, Buddhist monks have created complicated sand mandalas as a form of religious meditation. The luckiest ones, though, are those who get paid for playing in the mud.Īll art eventually deteriorates, but there is a genre of art whose demise is swift and severe, even expected – ephemeral art. There are many artists who create for the sheer joy of amusing themselves with paint, or whatever media they employ. Professionals give birth to a child which they are usually more than willing to sell – for a price.

Artists should suffer no illusions as to the physical custody or longevity of their work. We tend to categorize art as pieces corralled and protected by galleries and museums, with artists and conservators employing extensive, pricey archival methods to guard against inevitable aging.Īs you read this newspaper or website, you are experiencing multiple layers of art in its design and creation unless you are “sans vetements,” art has imbued the process of creating your clothing, the chair on which you sit and the china that holds your broiled salmon. The Japanese even have a name for it, “anicca,” meaning all things material or mental are in a continuous process of changing and subject to decay and destruction. Art itself is impermanent (Spoiler alert!) as are we. The hoarded primitive works come to no good end other than functioning as a springboard down memory lane.īut the impermanence of art is not relegated to kindergarten creations. All, or some deemed bin-worthy, take up a new life in the attic until birth of a grandchild or grudging acknowledgment that the child never made the Picasso cut. The refrigerator gallery allows for excellent display, new additions replacing the older ones daily, cast-offs rotated to the perilous pile on the kitchen counter, unless subject to the unwritten removal clause – child screaming re: possible removal of artwork. These kinderpieces are treated with respect due a Titian or Kandinsky. This process ensures messy children and equally messy creations, which are then clipped to miniature clotheslines to dry before the inevitable wave of home invasions which last for the ensuing three years, or when homework papers hijack the kids’ LL Bean backpacks. Smocked children delightedly dibble and dabble in billowy yards of newsprint, glue (not the tasty '50s paste of our youth) tempera paint and pipe cleaners. By three, most American tots have begun their 12- to 20-year academic trek. Our formal introduction to art begins early.

Dibble dabble smocked dress