What’s in a name?

The term "arts" is applied to the large and small spaces of our daily lives. Beginning with the arts as being the child’s natural language, to the idea that when someone is completely fluent in, and exquisitely executing almost anything, we say they are practicing its art. A deep mastery of something is engaging in its art form. "She was skilled in the art of negotiation." People who love unraveling numeric mysteries and finding order and structure in all things are said to be practicing the art of mathematics.

Art is something one makes, creates, or re-purposes, and is, ideally, a unique and original expression of its maker. The approach an artist has to life and work—an openness, a playfulness, a diligence—can be applied across all disciplines and aspects of living:

• "How can I make this project interesting to me?"
• "What is a different way of looking at this problem?"
• "I don’t know the outcome, but I will play within these circumstances anyway, and see what happens."

Sir Ken Robinson wrote of the arts as addressing the aesthetic experience which he defined as "one in which your senses are operating at their peak; when you’re resonating with the excitement of this thing that you’re experiencing; when you are fully alive."

When kids are given the time and space without judgment to pursue their passions, one sees a child fully alive. It is thrilling to witness.

And "ideas?" Simply because:

• Everyone has them;
• Everyone should feel ownership of their own;
• Everyone can fight like heck for their idea;
• Everyone should let go of an idea when a better one comes along;
• And because the world always needs good ones.