Imagination
is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will
what you imagine and at last you create what you will. -George
Bernard Shaw
The best art allows us to see with our own eyes, but brings us
into revelation. Our vision and perception gains strength. A chord is
touched inside of us so that we say, “Aha.”
When it goes public, a piece of art is owned by all, so
to speak, and open to a myriad of interpretations. From that time
forward it is objective and subjective both. The risk an artist takes
is that he may value his work highly, but the public does not.
When a new movement in art comes along, it often is met with
resistance and some ridicule. It asks the viewer to take a different
path from the norm, and often, the viewer says, “You foolish
artist, I know what good art is. You can't fool me! The tried and
true is apparent to all, so why should I go down this suspicious path
with you?” In modern times, this is what happened to the first
impressionists, and much later, also the abstract expressionists.
First ridicule and resistance, and then through persistence, passion
and devotion, a warming occurred with people. In these cases, it took
years along with the slow gaining of important allies in the art business,
and then the public was swayed. Now there is adulation. Just look at
Van Gogh's life.
The same happens in social movements such as women's suffrage,
native people's rights, race equality etc. Also, the world's great
religions were often met with fierce resistance when they first
appeared.
I have started creating art that is a departure from my past. It
just seems to be the time, and I have the passion and will to walk a
new path. I have not lost anything, I can always go back. Recently, I
have been constructing my paintings as much as painting them. They
begin with an idea that is fed from my unconscious and I go from
there. There are two now, with more coming. The finished peieces are
in the public realm since people have seen them—mostly online. I am
not showing them in a gallery at this time. Being public they are
both objective and subjective now.
As an example of how this type of art can evoke a wide range of
subjective responses, I will tell of the interpretations from
different people as they viewed my last piece. The main parts are: two
dolls—one standing and one falling, a niche where one doll stands
and one has fallen from, a window, an open book turned to a chapter
titled, “On Love”, and a hand seeming to come from thin air and
holding the book open.
A close friend of mine was the first to see it complete, and as we
discussed it she formulated a story that the two dolls were actually
the same person. She is both standing and also toppled over and entering the realm of
the book; falling into the story of love while the Hand of God holds
the book open.
Another person said that at first glance it made her feel like
someone is trying to hold onto LOVE.
Someone else wrote on Facebook: “People told me to be 'perfect'. Perfect
like a doll... Then, some people gave me books leading to imperfect
worlds... I took your hand so that I could grow into something I
would never have imagined...”
Another Facebook friend wrote: “This is a dream world, and
perhaps it has a touch of adobe wall of Santa Fe and old walls of
places you've traveled. There is hope and life coming through the top
window, so close yet set apart from the innocent girl, the fairy tale
girl, with the perfect outfit, part of whom has lost control and
fallen,(or perhaps some inner part of the dream has fallen) almost,
perhaps it will be a surprise to her, into a book, which seems to be
orderly - can't see the title. She doesn't know it but part of her
falls into some type of order that this hand, old as the wall,
ancient like the soul, has touched. The figure at the top might be
mourning for loss, while the hand feels the order of that book, not
reading it or holding it, but feeling it. It is a left hand of the
intuitive, inner self. Some dream perhaps fallen yet into a book. The
hatted doll is in a bit of a precarious position but so close to the
window of hope. Perhaps she represents external fantasies (letting
go. Just a few thoughts. She is hatted like the men you painted, but
here is a feminine aspect, perhaps an inner child waiting to be
helped down or through that window. the book is quite balanced...I
mean the two pages, like yin and yang. Perhaps the hand knows in this
book is the balance. If I want to trip on it, it could be a person,
with the doll at the head, the doll and the hand the arms and the
book the feet. The head then would have part in life and hope and
part in image, possibly fantasy or a young female sense, the hands
part letting go and part holding on to the feet holding to balance,
truth. But I wouldn't want to project onto it...(ha, ha, smile).”
And now, I confess that my original conception was for the two
dolls to represent a sort of fate for two different people. One who
would stand firm in life, bearing witness to the window of life and the Book of Love held by
the hand of destiny (or God), and the other who falls.
I like all the descriptions and they all work! Art is objective
and subjective. That is the fun.
The artist is a receptacle for
emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the
earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's
web. -Pablo Picasso
Logic will get you from A to B.
Imagination will take you everywhere. -Albert Einstein
