What is your art?

What is your art?  What an interesting question being posed to Albertans by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts via a special website that you can find here.

The website invites us to make a Top 5 list answering the question.  The responses are as varied and interesting as they are, at times, surprising.

I love my Premier's Council on Culture colleague Todd Babiak's responses, particularly this one:

"In small rooms - I read everything I can, but novels have taught me more of life and have given me more joy than any other art form.  In novels I find the truest and wildest expressions of what it means to be alive."

Brilliant.

Heather Klimchuk, Minister of Human Services, wrote "My fragrant, colourful garden...".  This put my in mind of Heather immediately.  What she does outside is absolutely art.

Several on the A-List, including Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson and figure skater Kurt Browning listed their kids' creations.  I totally get that.  We were sitting watching The West Wing last night and Ben got it in his head that he had to draw the Eiffel Tower.  Over the course of a half-hour it rose from the page, section by section.  Dylan's amazing adeptness with video games is a completely different art, but art just the same.

Another colleague from the Premier's Council, Barry Finkelman, who oversees Medalta Potteries in the Historic Clay District of Medicine Hat listed community theatre.  What a great choice!  A large group of us are living this form of art right now with A Christmas Carol.

Country music star Gord Bamford listed "The swaying of a barley field just before harvest on a breezy Alberta afternoon.  What a vivid picture that creates, and many memories of having grown up on the prairie.

Entrepreneur Brett Wilson shared that his art is his homeland.  "I have an extensive collection of artwork from my home province of Saskatchewan," he wrote.  I had no idea he was from my neck of the woods.  What a great thing to do with one's millions: buy art from the province from whence you came.

Joan Udell, Chair of the AFA, also a member of the Premier's Council, listed viewing visual art exhibits in her Top 5.  I can't agree with her more.  Spending several carefree hours basking in the beauty of artists' creations is like an adrenaline shot.

What is your art?