> I agree that art should convey something, but it should not matter whether it conveys to an audience or only to the creator.

I submit that ANYTHING someone does, creates, produces, or brings about has meaning to its creator. It's not *possible* for someone to create something that doesn't have meaning to the creator. Even if all I did was accidentally brush the tip of a pencil on the wall as I walked by, that dumb little pencil mark means something to me (though probably nothing significant). It is, upon the moment of creation, representative of what I was thinking at the time, where I was, how I felt about making the mark on the wall by accident, etc. If we restrict ourselves to things that one creates on *purpose* -- and I *hope* we can at least agree that art must be created on purpose -- then it's even less debatable that something can be created without meaning to its creator.

So you are stuck, now, with saying that "all things that people create are art" (or at least "all things that people create on purpose are art"). That means that our posts to this thread are art, your signature is art, that peanut butter and jelly sandwich you made last week is art. Well, some people *do* believe this.

So maybe you believe that art is art when what it means to its creator is "significant enough." But that breaks down with me for the simple reason that, lacking a third party (even just a theoretical one), you can't separate what meaning is actually infused in the creation and what meaning remains solely in the perceptions of the creator. As an extreme example, let's say that when I was three years old, there was a wedge-shaped mark on the ceiling above my bed. And because I slept in that bed every night for several years, the shape of that mark was seared into my mind. Decades later, I've moved out, haven't seen the mark for a long time, and, for whatever reason, I recall it to mind. I pull out a pencil and doodle the mark in a notebook. Two swishes of a pencil, and I create something that is utterly meaningless to anybody but me, and for me, boy does it have meaning. It brings back all kinds of memories and emotions and states of mind of a time long gone.

Is my two swishes of a pencil art? Bah. The two swishes DON'T HAVE MEANING. The meaning is still *in my head*, not in the creation.

On the other hand, if I painted something, or filmed something, or wrote something, or sculpted something that *conveys* those memories, or emotions, or states of mind, or even just a fractional part of them, *that* is art.

To wrap this back up to the beginning, no, I don't believe that someone else has to find meaning in a creation for it to be art, but I *do* believe that the art has to be *capable* of conveying meaning.

Music played stupidly slowly is art in the same sense that a Van Gogh through a cross-cut paper shredder is art. But the *act* of slowing it down beyond human perception (or shredding it) can't possibly be art. If it raises questions, maybe it's a philosophical exercise, but the act of slowing music down or shredding a painting -- outside of any context, anyway -- cannot convey anything.