Walk A New Path

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

You Must Do Something More

I think that the reason I am still alive, is that I am continuing to work through the veils that are between me and God. And I have things to do yet, although I might not know exactly what.

After my daughter Naomi died in 1999 at age nineteen, I often slept in her bed, where she took her last breath. It comforted me and I felt nearer to her. One night I had a dream:  
I was on a wooded hillside, and below, in a valley, was a little village. I could see that festivities were occurring. The next thing I knew I was at the carnival, and holding the hand of a little girl. Then I was alone, and jumped on a carousel that was slowly spinning. I watched the landscape going past and as the big wheel turned, suddenly I saw a door in front of me. I realized the door led to another dimension beyond time and space, and I thought “If I hesitate, the opportunity will be lost!” I had a moment of trepidation, but nonetheless, hurled myself forward. At the same moment, a voice spoke into my ear, “If you wish to go beyond the door, first you must do something more.” At that instant, my body lurched up from bed, and I banged my head against a textured plaster wall, cutting myself and bleeding.
The dream could be interpreted in various ways, but I can see that perhaps I was anxious to get off the big merry-go-round of life and enter the realm of pure spirit, leaving the mortal world behind—and Spirit warned me that my wish was premature . . . I had more work to do.
Since then, I have had so many valuable experiences and my soul has deepened. My fruit is not ripe enough yet to fall from the vine.

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round,

I really love to watch them roll,

No longer riding on the merry-go-round,

I just had to let it go,

-John Lennon, from Watching The Wheels

Destiny is Always Unfolding

Path into the Himalaya mountains.

“The future will take care of itself.”

This became my motto while traveling, and even now that I travel less, I believe it. Essentially, this thought promotes a feeling that destiny is always unfolding inexorably, so go with the flow without fear—when the future arrives, trust that it is meant to happen and be thankful.

My wife does not quite get this attitude, and she objects to my fearless living, especially when my savings plummet because I withdraw money to live fully according to my inspirations.

In fact, most people are afraid of “not having enough.” This means constantly struggling to keep assets to survive comfortably . . . especially in case money stops. Enough must exist to insure survival in emergencies.

Something strange happened to me after my oldest daughter, Naomi died. I gave up trying to hold on, and instead practiced letting go. I even stopped trying to hold onto my own life, and instead abandoned myself to what I call “the matrix.” This is the place where life and death is always shifting and dancing together. My marriage fell apart, my ex-wife bought my half of our home and I became “homeless,” leaving the USA to go around the world. For one year I lived in a state of flux, journeying through nineteen countries until I had gone completely around the earth. I occasionally found myself in places where people from my background would never tread—e.g. the slums of Cairo, Egypt, the ghettos of Nairobi, Kenya, a houseboat on a lake in Kashmir . . . but then, I always felt safe in “the matrix.”