Wrote this in response to a student regarding art assignments with specific themes, but since I hadn't verbalized these ideas in a while, I thought I would post it here as well. She wondered what was wrong with just drawing pretty pictures. The answer, I think, is nothing:
As an artist you are throwing your work out into the world, and hoping it connects with an audience. The strength of that connection, its resonance, is, I think, the measure of good art. All art is expression; meaning is its interpretation. Good work will always create a resonance in the audience's imagination, a meaning they draw from it and that draws them to it, wheth