The Mirror Makers

Recently I had a conversation with someone who told me how jealous she sometimes gets when reading someone else's work (poetry). I looked at her, felt her spirit, her vitality and creative aura and thought: "wow, it's really true what I've read in books and heard in various teachings - the things that we love, those creative works, or just casual human activities we witness in life, those beautiful moments are beautiful to us because we have a foundation of beauty within ourselves already."
It's funny how we tend to be motivated to always look for that beauty outside ourselves - and to measure our own creative expressions against the accomplishments of others.
You can't recognize something as 'good' or 'valuable' unless goodness and values have something to resonate against. Those impulses need mirrors in which to be seen. This is who we are: we are the mirrors, the source of artistic appreciation. But you can turn that metaphor around as well: Art is also a kind of mirror. We love art because it represents to us the parts of ourselves that we so yearn to validate and experience through our self perception. Great artists, indeed the Masters of any artistic medium, are great because of their skill as mirror makers. They show us reflections of what we feel within...
Human beings really are beautiful creatures - each and every one, unique in our individual, creative ways. It's just that our vision of beauty often gets shrouded under perceptual illusions and interpretations imposed by the pace of our lives and external attitudes of culture. So, art is here to remind us of who we are. Great art can bring us to moments of epiphany. Yet, simple folk art can also carry a fragment of the reflective glass - as can a child's giddy crayon drawing. Beauty truly is in the eye, and in the heart of the beholder. Our place here is not so much to take the position of critic ( or even self critic) as it is to enjoy this world and each other. Yes, some of our work will come out more refined, and thus be more celebrated by the public. But all artistic endeavors are worthy, all have beauty to share. We see ourselves in this art that we make because we are all, without exception, creatures who love to look in the mirror. This though, is not vanity, but is deeper. It is about that age old, very human story: us in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass.