The artist is driven by a intense belief that life means something, and that these experiences and the construct of reality, threaded with mystery and beauty, must mean something. It is the faith that life is not just life. It is the noble and reverent pursuit of a dialogue with what is unseen and unknowable. It is the seeking of beauty and mystery and upon finding it, or a semblance therein, recognizing the sacredness of beauty and mystery in of themselves, though not knowing what each instance signifies.

The artist gives validity to something by declaring it is beautiful, mysterious, or important but can only do so believing in his heart that these things mean something in themselves. It is the belief that beauty exists somewhere without him, is above him, and he only happens across it as a traveller. The belief that mysteries do mean something, although their meanings escape us. It is the belief that some things are intrinsically important, sacred, and worthy of reverence.

Art is like life, in that, at its best, it looks like it means something. Art is the search for meaning.

This belief that there is meaning, and beauty, is counterbalanced by the apparent waste, ugliness, despair, and futility that is also inherent to this construct of reality. Beauty and mystery is opposed by ugliness and banality. If a thing (a useless object, a stormy sky) looks like it means something, it follows that its mystical meaning is obscured by its own banality. We are all prisoners of the banality of normal life. And yet life still looks like it means something.

The artist seeks reconciliation, a catharsis, with the meaning of his own existence and the apparent meaninglessness of modern life, and is surprised to find that the struggle can be beautiful, and that the struggle itself has meaning.