Kaleb Ostraff

Touchpoints for the Ineffable

It seems as though teachers and artists are increasingly being expected to define, explain, and concretize what art is in a prescriptive way that makes art more understandable systematic, predictable, and measurable. While some of these shifts are good and needed, it is also concerning because they leave little room for unknowing, curiosity, spontaneity, and ambiguity, which are the indeterminate spaces “art navigates best” (Camnizter, 2022, 04:05). While art can be indeterminate, ambiguous, and ineffable at times, it can also be a simple way of pointing things of significance out to each other and saying, “hey, look!” The artwork is a medium that connects the conceptual and abstract in a tangible form.

Through an essay exploring a variety of art pieces, I will explore how art can become a touchpoint for things in our lives that can be abstract and difficult to fully grasp or articulate in other ways. Artworks in this sense are openings to reflect on and get at the things that often lay outside our awareness helping to engage with what perplexes our soul… “the things we perceive but cannot name” (Goulish, 2022, n.p.). Getting at what it means to be human is not something that can ever be completely solved but is something that shifts and evolves as we change; thus, we have to come back to it repeatedly. While making art about our thoughts, experiences, or feelings often can fall short in capturing all that those things are, it can still make them have an aliveness because they exist in the world in a way where we can return to them and engage with them again.