I ask everyone on my podcast why art matters. So people often ask me why art matters? With repetitive practice I have become less interested in an answer to the question and more interested in what happens when someone genuinely lives inside it.

The most profound experiences I have had with art rarely arrive through immediate understanding. They happen when something interrupts or surprises me. A painting I cannot stop thinking about. An exhibition that changes the pace of my day. A work that feels strangely familiar and completely mysterious at the same time.

Art asks us to pay attention differently. Not necessarily longer, just differently. What happens when we notice our own reactions? Sit with our uncertainty? Become aware that we have been moved emotionally before and regardless of when or whether we fully understand why.

I think this is part of why art can feel so invigorating and also so frustrating. We are trained and expected to move quickly through life solving, categorizing, deciding, concluding. Art resists that instinct. It doesn’t always, but it does sometimes, and those are the catalyzing moments. The ones you continue to seek once you know. I have found that the most meaningful works continue unfolding over time and often become more meaningful as we change.

Walking through museums with other people over the years, I have noticed that the most memorable conversations almost never begin with expertise. They begin with curiosity. Confusion. Recognition. Discomfort. Attraction. Some version of: “I do not entirely understand why this affects me and yet it does.”

Art creates a space where we can practice being present with something unresolved without immediately trying to eliminate the ambiguity. And in a culture increasingly organized around speed, certainty, productivity, and constant opinion, that kind of attention can feel quietly radical.

Art matters because it returns us to our own perception. And for certain, learning to truly see—art, other people, ourselves, the world around us—is a lifelong practice rather than a conclusion.

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