Eye Of The Beholder

Most art is intentional. There are some lovely accidents that don't start out as art, but become that way: dripping candles, the 9/11 Commission Report, really bad haircuts. Those are endeavors we can't get back. They just happened. Painting, writing, film making, sculpture - these all began with an idea, then went through some creative process until some finished product emerged. Art with malice aforethought.
I have always subscribed to the Woody Allen notion about creativity - that every step after the initial concept is a compromise. It's in the stone you choose, or the brush you pick, or the light that particular day. What comes out on the other end is never precisely as you imagined it. That doesn't always mean you end up with something less than you imagined. Movies are a great example of this. Ronald Reagan as Rick in "Casablanca?" Good compromise. Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones? Good compromise. Still, one never knows until you start the ball rolling just exactly where you'll end up.
What got me thinking about all this in the first place? The other day I was walking past a car that had a Kleenex box stuffed up against the back window. I found myself momentarily caught up in the pattern on the box: a number of fat cats in bright colors lolling around in a sky blue background. Not great art, but enough for me to remark on it. It was colorful and pleasing to the eye. I'm fairly certain that the person or committee that painted it had commerce as their chief aesthetic goal, but there I was, staring at the design on the side of a Kleenex box. How about that? Now I've written a few hundred words about it. Intentional or not, art was made. The jury's still out about how good that art is, but I know what I like.