One particularly naughty sec 1 kid handed up a drawing of a
bunch of circles with stripes drawn across them diagonally and
coloured them multi colour. It was so .... EASY to draw that for
effort he would have failed. However, as part of the regular
session, I usually called a few from the class up and ask them what
and why they did what they did so they can explain their
perspective.
So I called him up and asked him "so would you like to tell me more
about what you drew?"
He looked at me like I am asking the obvious. "I'm drawing
bubbles."
Hmm. I was thinking if he was trying to act smart or giving some
silly excuses for the circles. So I continued asking...
"How about these lines over here and the colours you chose? Would u
like to tell me about them?"
And to my surprise (and shame for pre judging him), he said "Err..
you know teacher, when the light shine on the bubbles, there is a
lot of colours shining shining. Yaa.. so I trying to draw
that."
What is art? Maybe I would say an artist defines art - how? He is
able to look at something - an incident/an environment/an object -
and look at it with an intensity that is unique to him. His
perspective - whether he can introduce something special for
somethign mundane, whether he can translate something complex into
something tangible - and his ability to share that perspective with
people is his method and skill to create art.
That is why I think art is impt in people's lives. Not KNOWLEDGE of
great artists or great paintings or even the ability to create
these - but to cultivate the ability to respond to life. Which is
why great scientists, great architects, great inventors - and even
great businessmen - become artists in their own right.
And for the rest of us, who may be less talented, 
a little bit of the rainbow rubs off us when someone
shares with us that that pespective that multicoloured circles can
be so much more than our litte minds think.
