Art Doesn't Always Have to Be 'About' Something

Jafabrit, a wonderfully whimsical artist who works in many media, reminds us of that in this post:

sometimes motivation [for creating art] has to do with a desire to paint a tongue just because I had never done it before.

Often, it seems, artists only find the real meaning of their work, if there is a meaning to be found, after they've acted on the simple desire to do something with piece of canvas or the musical scale or a blank page they'd never done before.

Read--and view--the whole thing.

[UPDATE: My opinion may have changed a bit since I wrote this. I guess I feel that all kinds of art has its place and that artists who overworry about what meaning they want to convey aren't engaging in art, but propaganda.]