Expressing gratitude is a ritual this week for Americans. 

By giving thanks, we help those around us feel appreciated and remind ourselves of how fortunate we are. 

Here at Artwork Archive, we are going around our figurative Thanksgiving table sharing how we are thankful. We are thankful for the role the arts play in our lives, for our work in the arts, and for you, and all that you do as artists. 

Here are just a few reasons we are thankful this year.  

We are thankful for art that enriches our daily lives

We are thankful for being surrounded by art. Artwork Archive fits into a bigger world of arts and cultural, a world that provides us so much enrichment and joy that we just have to share some of the reasons we are thankful for arts. 

Art changes the way that we experience and interact with place. We are grateful for how art helps us to connect better to our environments. Whether art becomes functional, like creating wayfinding in a busy airport or a public place, or more atmospherically by enhancing a mood within a room or fostering a new experience, art is powerful! 

Since we are based in Denver, Colorado. Talking about art and place wouldn’t be complete without a shout out to Denver International Airport’s Mustang.

Luis Jiménez’s Mustang is an iconic 32ft tall blue horse that rears up on its hind legs on the road leading up to the Denver Airport. Passengers leaving and coming through Denver notice the horse and its glowing eyes; they know they’ve finally arrived, or give it a nod goodbye. The mustang is connected with the airport and the feeling of leaving and arriving. This artwork is a landmark after a long travel day and an anchor to place.

The Blue Mustang helps to characterize and engage travelers during this busy season with a pre-existing place. 

We are thankful for art connecting us to ideas 

Art connects us not only with the place but with ideas that might be harder to engage with without a physical prompt. We are thankful that art is an expression of ideas and emotions. We are thankful that art allows us to engage with ideas in new ways.

Want to think through our human relationship with the natural world? Check out any of Mark Dion’s art that works through ideas about extinction, classifying the natural world, pollution in oceans, and climate change.

Art also allows us to think through and understand the past through genre. Reactionary and emotional wartime confusion? Abstract expressionism. 

We are thankful for the space that art creates to explore present issues and how we can use it as a tool to think through the past. 

 

We are thankful for art connecting us with each other  

We are thankful that art brings us together. Whether it's visiting Isak Heartstone the troll together and creating quality time, or getting into a conversation about the ideas influencing art, we are thankful for the social value of art.

Again and again, visitor studies have proven that museums and other places made for art are valued by audiences for their social power. Museums have become less about knowledge transfer and more about social interactions and experience. 

We are thankful for art that specifically works to be socially engaged or interactive. We are thankful for art spaces that prioritize the social value of art.
 

We are thankful for all the artists we get to work with at Artwork Archive 

Thank you for trusting us to help you get organized and build your art business.

You give us purpose, and inspire us to do our best work. We could not do it without your support, inspiration, and thoughtful engagement with what we make. You make creating a product like Artwork Archive fun, challenging and inspiring. 

Our mission is to help you succeed as professional artists, and we are grateful for the community that we have built together.