What is Art For ? written by Ellen Dissanayake, published University of Washington Press, accessed 29 June 2020. I have started my inquiry for semester two over the first-semester break to get a heads up for a COVID lockdown at home. Towards the end, the last four weeks of semester one were challenging for me to stay enthused and in particular, I had a hard time dealing with no physical contact of the RMIT Master cohort, the corridor chats lost to COVID and the bleak outlook for uni to stay online for semester two. So the investigation began to look for inspiration get me fired up and for the creative juices to kick in. So What is art For seemed like a safe place to start, having read and skimmed through some chapters, and also read her article The Birth of the Arts 1,12,2008 Dissanayake makes a valid effort that art began before humans could talk it was the start of creation, the biological evolution and how humans communicated? Dissanayake concludes that way back in prehistoric ages chimpanzees were somewhat like a man except they could not think as we do, they could not communicate as man does, and they could imitate but that was it. Motherhood is referenced as a bond between the newborn and the maternal nurturing that as humans are an attachment. p3. The “infant comes into the world ready to engage with others, they are exquisitely sensitive to human voices and faces-and particularly to certain kinds of sounds, facial expressions and head and body movements” Art as a source to communicate leads in both the natural world and the non-human world. My interest is in both these areas as I seek to find a connection through my practice the context being how do I make sense of reality in everyday life with my feelings of a spirt lifting my thoughts to the non-human nurturing from above the earth. like a baby kicking inside the womb and the mother responding with a gentle rubbing of the stomach or sigh that only a mother can know these feelings going back to Dissanayake's What Is Art For, she talks extensively about the emotions and beauty art posses and how we evaluate art as the receiver. My voice is looking to find an attachment like the baby kicking its mother for a sign of safety yet the baby is growing in a protected environment the nurturing before entering the world, maybe it’s a motif I am seeking to unearth. Right now the inquiry falls back on my ongoing interest with Ana Mendieta her Silueta series in particular, although I am now starting to review her Fireworks as they also have a strong embellishment with the body as the art form on a spiritual nature. Kiki Smith’s feminism sculpture depicting the body and her spiritual drawings and Joseph Beuys who I am just starting to explore his drawing ovure.