ELI5: What Makes Something Art?

Something becomes art when a person creates or shares it with special care to express a feeling, tell a story, or spark our imagination.

Think about the difference between making a plain peanut butter sandwich and decorating a birthday cake. When you slap peanut butter on bread just because your tummy is rumbling, you are simply making food. But if you take colorful frosting to draw a smiling dinosaur on a cake to make your best friend laugh, you have just made art.

In your everyday life, almost anything can turn into art depending on how and why it is made:

• In your kitchen: A regular bowl of soup is just lunch, but when a cook arranges bright vegetables to look like a tiny garden, they are using creativity to make art you can taste and see.
• On the sidewalk: Pavement is just a road for walking, but when someone draws with bright chalk to turn the ground into a magical hopscotch castle, they turn a normal street into an expression of joy.
• In your bedroom: Throwing your clothes into a pile is just cleaning up, but choosing a special outfit with bright, matching colors that makes you feel brave and happy is a way of creating wearable art.
• In the car: Listening to the noisy car engine is just sound, but when someone beats on the steering wheel to create a fun rhythm that makes everyone dance, they are making music.