Michelle Fontenot: Peace, Love & Mosaics

Art is easy. Being a happy, relaxed, contemplative functioning human being is hard. Artists and musicians, (and cowboys, plumbers, and Indian chiefs) are still some of the coolest people I know, but not in the same way I thought of as a kid. To actually make art, you have to work… A LOT. You don’t always get paid. You don’t always get the piece you started out making. The thing is, you have to keep making it. You have to keep doing it. You have to finish the piece you set out to make. I don’t know how not to work. I don’t know how not to think of things in terms of color and shadow. Light and movement. Form and function. Light or dark. Good or bad. Right or wrong. Art is making choices about what you hold back and what you reveal. When you know to keep adding and when you know to stop. See… looks easy, but like good design and good art, and good music, that’s when its the best – right when it starts looking effortless.

Art is the easy part. I think part of what I do for a living, (the art part) and why it is so gratifying to me is knowing that it’s mine, I get to decide how it goes and what the story line will be. I get to make it up as I go along. It’s a kind of self imposed set of rules that I only have for myself. When I am working on something that I am enjoying the look of, and it feels like its the next best thing I ever did, it gives me a thrill, it makes me feel like I am doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. I know that some of the stuff that is out there hanging on walls is there only because I thought it, I made it, and someone else sees it in a way that makes sense. Crazy wonderful sense. So many things are assumed and taken for granted. But our imaginations and ability to seek out beauty; the desire to feel through art, literature, music, prayer, …. is something that connects me to everyone who is lucky enough to know the secret to happiness. Just take a minute to ponder. Look around. Listen. Feel. Peace and love baby, peace and love.