An interesting conversation

An interesting conversation is going on over at Ragged Cloth Cafe in the comments of the March 4 post We've All Got Something to say. One of the gems of that conversation was a quote offered up by Clairan Ferrono from Patricia Hampl's book Blue Arabesque:

A painting must depict the act of seeing, not the object seen...,

which made me recall a quote I read recently on Contemporary Art Quilts Lens:

Art actually lies in the act of creation, not in its result. -G. Ellis Burcaw, Introduction to Museum Work.

Along these same lines, Nancy Crow said:

The only thing that matters in the end is that the talent has evolved, has been nourished, and that a legacy has been left behind. -1995.

The kernel idea for me here, the idea that has been the spark for me to better understand why a physical interpretation of beauty or experience (a work of art) is so compelling, is that whether or not we know it when we are looking at it, art is essentially a process, an action, a verb, an experience, encompassing both the creator, her finished work and the viewer.