In this article, the authors consider the potential contribution of the concept "lived experience" to the psychology of art. From the perspective of "lived experience," the self is always already engaged and comes to every situation with personal interests and ideologies, and the art object is, among other things, understood as "speaking to" or addressing interests and ideologies. This view situates art objects at the center of a variety of sense-making processes: embodied, felt, emotional, intellectual, and intersubjective. It also makes changes in identity that come about through aesthetic experience central to our analysis. In considering the potential of "lived experience," the authors will examine the associated experiences of viewing and making art. The authors will argue that examining these experiences would benefit from a qualitative methodology and a focus on selfhood. The authors sketch the outlines of such an approach by examining relevant work from Dewey, Vygotsky, and Bakhtin. For these authors, creating an account of art also involves constructing an ontology of lived experience.