I am not shy of quitting a hobby when I lose interest, but sometimes it pays to persist and look for new perspectives to forge a new path forward within the practice. Sometimes you need to abandon the playing field, but sometimes you just need to tweak the game to your liking.
About a decade ago, I had a gotten jammed up in my appreciation of art. Viewed cynically, art is merely a tool of the rich and powerful to showcase themselves. I have no doubt that artists themselves are genuinely sincere in their passion, but the industry is merely one of status enhancement, for the patrons, the critics, and the artists themselves.
While I still hold that these facts are an accurate a reflection of reality in the gallery, I had an epiphany when a professor pointed out “Yes, but don’t you see that the act of viewing art is creative in itself?” After pondering the comment for a few weeks, I went to art museum and saw a Rotko on the wall. While I stood there, I focused on the border between white and brown and saw an stormy arctic snow scene complete with a igloo and campfire.
In that moment I smiled. I knew that such simplistic representational interpretation of this work would have been repugnant to Mr. Rothko and any other respectable student of art, but fuckall the academy, I had become a participant in the painting as a viewer. My crisis of faith was answered, I had found a new way back into the game.