What constitutes art?

Building furniture allows a great deal of time to get to grips with your inner dialogue. As I chisel away for hours on end, fussing over the smallest details, one of the dominant questions I ask myself is, how do I charge for the amount of time invested in a project? So I search online and find pieces ranging from $500 all the way up to $5000. Right so I tell myself there must be a market for high end furniture but what is it that makes it so desirable that someone is prepared to part with 5000 hard earned dollars as opposed to buying something that will serve the same purpose at a 10th of the price. Perhaps it comes down to rarity and art, for centuries artworks have been sold off securing massive sums of money in exchange for the artists creativity and time. So then it most likely that furniture can be both functional as well as art. That leads me to my next train of thought, what makes your art stand out? Going against the norm can be quite challenging as every season has its trends and the trends that are spotted on social media, magazines and all other forms of marketing, lead us to perceive a certain style as desirable. Deviating from these trends can be risky as if main stream is not punting your designs then how do you find your market. Perhaps is by staying consistently authentic, standing out in a world that seems to be rushing to conform. I’ve often seen a new car design out on the road and thought to myself wow I much prefer the old one, but within a few weeks the new shape grows on me and I can appreciate what they were trying to achieve. Pushing boundaries can be seen as “the wrong choice” but if no-one was ever pushing boundaries would there be room for art.