A reader asks Matt whether viewing art has ever had a life-changing impact on him.

Matt responds:

My life is constantly being changed by art, which is manifested in many different ways:  through the art of plays and movies; the art of sport...  (I can never figure out how golfers can use their sensitivities and the wind to strike a ball and have it come within inches of a preconceived hole in the ground.”  Of course, the great composers of music often bring me to tears.

I think the whole world, if it’s perceived in total or in its integral parts, can be identified as “the arts.”  This is different from what art means to a great many people, who only find art in a given painting or sculpture or installation.

Maybe this is a minute difference or maybe a gross difference.  As I always say, “It is what it is.”

I believe that in my life, a day when something doesn’t happen that changed, questioned, endorsed, or assaulted my perception, is a lost day.

One manifestation of this was when I first started to experience rain in Ireland.  On the cliff where I live, it doesn’t come straight down, it blows up straight forward and hits you right in the face.  So—be prepared for the unusual and the bizarre, because at some point they might become the mundane!

Matt