WHAT DOES ART MEAN? AND WHAT IS LIFE?!

Hello, everyone! My name is Kate, and I am on Steemit as art.life. I am here to express myself mostly through writing, but, since I do some drawing and painting in my free time, I'll show you some of my art, too.

The main themes of my posts will be art and life. But I will not limit myself to visual arts only: as much as I love pictures, paintings and films, I adore music, too, and, most of all, I love to live, to experience. And I believe that the way we live our lives is also a type of art, an art of living.
So, what is art? Well, roughly, there are two main definitions:

1. the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination;
2. a skill at doing a specified thing, typically one acquired through practice.

Over time we develop this particular skill - living. Each of us leads a different life, and - believe it or not - it is almost entirely on us how we live it. On a rainy summer day, ​ you can either sulk about the lack of sun or enjoy the refreshing humid air. I'm sure you know and understand that. But what I want to discuss is how our choice to live impacts the simple, daily aspects of life, the little moments - the ones that actually make up life. I used to think I had no control of these moments, and my immediate reaction to them, just like I have no control over the weather. But no. As soon as you start to take life back in your hands and regain control of your own mind, you realize - the sun somehow shines brighter when you want it to.
Your life is basically your mindset. And as soon as you start changing that, you'll see - the people, the environment, the whole world around you start to change, too. And exactly the way you wanted them to!
Of course, it takes a lot of courage, and it takes time. But, buddy, I'm with you on this road. I am no expert at living, I have gone through rollercoasters of faults, improper reactions and ill-timed emotions, but every one of these mishaps is a lesson. So you're either living or learning, and usually it's both.

And the process of making art is just like living. You may have a vision in your mind of what you want to paint; and if you see it very clearly, you are able to put it on the paper, yet still the outcome is somewhat different. Because from the moment you get an idea until the moment you put the finishing touch, you have erred and failed a hundred times, and come up with a hundred solutions to fix them. It doesn't matter if it's perfect, it's finished, and that's important. And what matters the most is what you have learned in the meantime.

So let's walk this way together. Let's paint and live, and in between let's ponder - what is it that we've learned?