Art is Work

This is Milton Glaser speaking in the introduction to his book, Art is Work. Good stuff.

There seems to be much confusion about what we mean when we use the word art. I have a recommendation. We eliminate the word art and replace it with work and develop the following descriptions:

1. Work that goes beyond its functional intention and moves us in deep and mysterious ways we call great work.

2. Work that is conceived and executed with elegance and rigor we call good work.

3. Work that meets its intended need honestly and without pretense we call simply work.

4. Everything else, the sad and shoddy stuff of daily life, can come under the heading of bad work.

This simple change could eliminate anxiety for thousands of people who worry about whether they are artists or not, but this would not be its most significant consequence. More important, it could restore art as a central, useful, activity in daily life – something for which we have been waiting fora very long while.