Scrap Book 1

This is a photograph of a piece of gum that is who knows how old, and its been repeatedly smashed into the pavement out behind Dorchester.  I didn't really know what to look for, in order to find something that wasn't art.  Lately we have been talking about what art actually is, and this seems ingenious, to declare what is not art in order to able to more closely analyze what we could consider as art.  However, as we have been discussing what art actually is, I keep being drawn to the idea that anything, really, could be considered art.  Because if art is the tangible manifestation of a creative force working uniquely through each individual... well that covers a lot of ground.  When I saw the piece of gum, I realized that this was a perfect example of what art was not.  This piece of gum had been used to give pleasure to the chewer, and when the sad piece of gum lost its flavor, it was discarded and forgotten.  This thing is not a work of art, but a work of habituation.  You like the taste of gum, you chew it, it loses its flavor, you spit it out, you forget it.  Nobody would notice if that piece of gum just disappeared, because it is meaningless.  And art is not meaningless.