Written by Dyami Millarson

My father’s art company/organisation was called Art Is Labour, alternatively Operation X. It fitted into his philosophy that one simply had to work hard to be a good artist. What he was doing, was top sport. He designed hand-made wedding dresses and furniture. This was his art. When Art Is Labour was led by my father, he combined philosophy, art and design, thus rendering him a philosopher-artist-designer. He proved that he could manage being all these things at the same time, and this was what was special about his Art Is Labour.

After years of reflection, I have come to grasp what my father was trying to achieve, and I have begun to see that our paths are crossing each other from different angles. Although I had no lack of artistic intuition, I never really chose to pursue this beyond what I needed for my life goals. My father, however, developed his artistic talent and he achieved insights by doing so. He did certainly believe that practice makes perfect, and that hard work bears fruit.

I believe that art is about production. One may ask whether one’s art is good, but one should perhaps not think so much and simply focus on achieving self-improvement through production. We keep learning throughout our entire lives. There is no defined end to learning. Life is no school, but it requires constant adaptation/evolution. The learning of new skills is itself a product of productivity. When one produces, one acquires skills. Doing is the best way to learn. Whilst language-learning is an art, the best way to learn languages is production. Writing blog articles is one way to produce things in a language, having conversations is another way. Being productive in a language from the very beginning is what helps one to learn the language much faster. The same is true with learning art skills.