I think it's funny that we're reading a book that's trying to explain in neat little terms the ideas of art and creativity... the things that I've always enjoyed being mystical and magical and beyond words. At PS Altoona, I had a couple of pretty cool art profs, of course, as most art teachers are. And they were always sorta wonky and different, I envisioned them as art embodied. They are the presence of art and creativity in human form, not explainable in so many words, but something that you have to experience to understand it. If anyone who is reading this is an artist in any way, than this chapter was for all of us. You all know the feeling of needing to get something off your chest, so you set up your easel, or your charcoals, pottery wheel, or just a notebook for writing. And you feel so much better once you're done. Art is... relaxing. If you let it be that way. Of course there are some people that just want me to Interpret Interpret Interpret art and beat me over the head with it... but if it is just left alone, it is beautiful. Pure. Absolute.

I love what Pablo Picasso said about being an artist. "Whether he likes it or not, man is the instrument of nature; it imposes its character, its appearance upon him..."

And there's the inevitable feeling that Stephen Spender put perfectly into words. "At the moment when art attains its highest attainment it reaches beyond its medium of words or paints or music, and the artist finds himself realizing that these instruments are inadequate to the spirit of what he is trying to say."