Yes, we’re engaged in building two huge sculptures of a Dragon and a Phoenix. And so we wind up asking each other an obvious question: what is art?

Is it therapy we asked? No, we’re not therapists. We don’t want to engage in therapy. As Bob Lecy, the builder of the Dragon’s Heart says, “Healing is an inside job.” We don’t want to be focused on healing, fixing or changing anyone.

Is art just a form of expression, we asked? Well yes, that’s much closer to the mark but there’s so much more.

As we pour ourselves into the imagining and building of these creatures we’re noticing that these creatures are working us just as we are working them.

Sometimes they inspire us to dance. A moment later they evoke a hidden emotion that we’re finally ready to feel. Then, as we slip into the craft of pounding, shaping and grinding, time literally disappears. When we “come to” we’re grinning and don’t always know why.

Denny says it like this, “Art is about touching awe.”

So, what is our art?

Perhaps this poem touches our awe.

. . . .

What is Art
Art is whatever you want it to be

Art transforms emotion into matter
Expresses what can’t be otherwise expressed
Gives form, shadow and depth to what cannot otherwise be seen

Art evokes emotion
Expresses emotion
Stores emotion
Gives emotion a place to live

Art slips right by the ego to remove the filter
That says I can’t, I won’t

Art is the voice of the soul
The trade tool of the heart
It lets me feel what is too dangerous to feel
It lets me express what is too dangerous to express

Art meets the other where the other is
It speaks in a thousand voices… or more if needed

Art grows in meaning with every viewing
Then grows in meaning as it ages

Art speaks with many souls at once
Art speaks one on one with everyone
Art courts the sacred and the profane as if they were the same

To make art I must become art
And there, between the making and becoming
Lies my own true voice

~Robert Bellows, 2019