Art is a dramatic struggle with a web of problems associated with the human condition. No substantial problem of this condition is soluble by art alone (technical problems are soluble), but issues regarding the problem of identity or the problem of the absolute, while struggled with, can never be solved. Instead of solving ones own problems, the artist chooses to live it through the instrumentality of their materials. By fixing an idea in material, they exposes either the crudeness of their thoughts or the clumsiness of their art. This leads many (not most) to an active expansion of experiment and refinement of both thoughts and skills in an effort to gain the ability to manipulate their materials as if the materials themselves were meaning and reason. Through the acts of struggle, questioning, and growth, the artist seeks to transform a problem into a unique set of terms, and through the effort, as the investigator, remake themself into something new.
Zygote Blum 