In the month of November, I’m meditating on my gratitude for something different each day.

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude. Friedrich Nietzsche

Today, I’m thankful for artists.

They make our lives more beautiful. Through their work, our lives are deeper. They heighten our awareness. They challenge us to re-frame and frequently inspire us to try new things. Their work moves us out of the everyday mundane. Per Thomas Merton, “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” I’d have to agree. Art makes our existence magical.

So, I say thank you to:

Graphic designers who provide the visual for so much of what we see everyday; typographers who make seemingly simple letters into masterpieces; illustrators who bring to life ideas and words; graffiti artists and muralists who teeter between being outlaws and sell-outs, depending who you ask, but regardless keep at it; photographers who stay up all night to capture the stars, wake up at the crack of dawn to get the best light, and who spend hours waiting for the shot; performers who use their emotion, movement, and bodies to enrapture us; and the countless other kinds of artists who create and capture anything imaginable.

Thank you to the artists who face lawsuits, arrests, and criticism. Thank you to the artists that aren’t taken seriously. Thank you to the artists that don’t know how good they are. Thank you for changing. Thank you for making things we sometimes hate at first and absolutely love later.

Thank you for the installations that allow us to stand in a rain shower without getting wet, homes shaped like dragons, photos of glorious spaces long forgotten, graffiti made of something sweet, and an animated story of an old man who flies his house across the globe via thousands of balloons.

Thank you for showing us the world we live in and those that don’t even exist.