Does Art Need to be Intentional?

Does artistic worth come from the artist, the audience, or both?

For those of you wanting poetry and life writings that’s now been diverged to a separate Substack here The Shadow Mirror, please follow me over there too.

Dear Red Cabbage Heads,

So recently I was having a lovely zoom conversation with my friend - I’m fairly certain I can call them a friend now even though we have never met (yet) in real life - Nelly Bryce about life, the universe and everything. Poetry was a big bit of it, obviously, as I met Nelly through their publication Poetry Pals. But we got onto talking about art in general.

Now I have huge imposter syndrome. I struggle with calling a lot of what I do art and recently I was blown away by how one simple, easily set up on a whim, picture became popular - not viral popular cos , well just cos - but it elicited a lot of praise. Praise that viscerally , deep down I felt was misplaced. It even made me a little uncomfortable.

This is the pic. A simple pic of a frog with legs giving a piggy froggy back to a not yet legged froglet looking out of the window. It took me a minute or less to conceive and execute the idea, and was very quickly snapped before going out without said frogs. I was called an artist for this pic. And I said to Nelly that I didn’t feel I was an artist, that it was an on the fly picture, capturing an easily set up moment with little work or intention behind it, and therefore I didn’t deserve the title artist.

Now Nelly, being her usual thought provoking self, asked me if I thought all art SHOULD be intentional and I replied yes initially. But then I thought about it, Nelly is good at letting me mull and think, and I don’t think I agree with myself.

Yes art CAN be intentional. Most of my poetry is incredibly intentional each word chosen carefully, placed precisely, the rhythm and meter thought about, punctuation chosen (or not) etc. But knitting…? Do I intentionally create yarn art? I’m not sure. I intentionally knit and it has a measure of meditation about it. I am intentional about my stitches, taking time and almost honouring each click of the needles, gently guiding the yarn to where I want it to be, being mindful of the time and space I’m occupying. The feel of the metal and yarn between my fingers, the growing item be it froglet, fox, or jumper and how it pleases me. But do I consider it art? Not really, I’m following a pattern, changing it where I feel it needs it, and just knitting. Should I consider it art? Is something I manage on a whim art?

Nelly says I should consider it art. That because I find it easy to do doesn’t stop it being art. Most other people don’t do what I do. Most other people might find it hard, or boring, or just not like knitting. And it made me pause. Am I not creating? Is it not artistic? And to this I answer yes. Am I am artist then? And my initial unfiltered response would be no. Artists are in higher echelons than I can ever hope to inhabit. They are revered and talented and awesome people. That can’t possibly ever be me.

Now my response upon reflection is trauma based. From the push by my father from very young to be interested in science and maths and artistic endeavours sidelines. To having arts based degrees denied me because they wouldn’t lead to a ‘proper’ job. Art was for people who couldn’t science or maths. Why would anything I produce be of worth? Unless you were of extreme talent it was a complete waste of time. (Though I do think that to come up with something like string theory in Physics you have to have some aspect of artistry in you.)

Now I produce frogs or foxes or badgers because it’s something I can do whilst resting because of my chronic illness. It doesn’t take much energy and I find it soothing, especially compared to the amount of energy the frustration of doing nothing uses. It’s a stim, self soothing, and it also helps keep the arthritis in my hands at bay. I am not seeking to make art. I don’t knit to make art. I knit because I can, because I want to. One day I may just stop.

The little vignettes I make up that take up time, energy, and forethought I do consider art more, because of the intentionality, because of the effort needed to complete them.

So does anything not made with intentionality not deserve to be called art? Even if it is incredibly artful at the end? I think that the end result needs to be judged by the eyes of the receiver of the art - there is a lot of stuff I don’t rate by others do. A lot I do rate and others don’t. It’s subjective. So subjective.

So I asked my kidults - and the consensus was all art requires intentionality: this can be supplied either by the artist or the audience. That is the classification of art requires intentionality. We then talked about whether fulfilling a brief was a case of art versus design, which leads onto if design is art. And at that point my brain fritzed and decided it was extra tired and stopped following the discourse.

So, hmm, I’ve run out of musing. I suppose I ought to think of a way to wrap this up.

So I suppose I am an artist, because you lot seem to say I am. Am that’s good enough for me. Have a picture.

That’s all folks, Tx

Froglets🐸, other animals🐇🦊🦡🐭🐘🦏🦎🦥🦧etc, and other miniatures are (or will be) available from me on here (message me). You can also find them at My Website. They are considered collectibles, are unsuitable for under 14s due to the wires, are not CE/UKCA tested (collectibles do not need to be), and are therefore priced as such. Also contact me here if you fancy something you see or don’t see, I’m always open to suggestions. I do have ME/CFS and making and photographing them etc all takes a lot of energy and is a very slow process. I do knit to order too, but be aware a froglet with a jumper takes up to a week for me to make on average. The smaller they are the longer they take as they are more intricate and fiddly. Thank you muchly.

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