"You could paint portraits that are much more likely to sell."
"House portraits would be popular."
"You could be an illustrator."
Since I usually scramble to describe what motivates the my work, I was thrilled to discover, upon finally cracking open a library book that's due in two days, the thoughts of Wassily Kandinsky. Bridging nearly a century from the time he wrote these words, it's fascinating to note how contemporary they seem, and how much they mirror my largely unspoken views. Although he would probably be appalled at my EXTREMELY deliberate marriage of representational images and immaterial subject matter, I think we'd find lots of common ground if time would bend and let us hang out in the back yard for an afternoon.
This entry is not only for those who ask me why, but as a reference point for myself, especially since I need to return the book on Thursday and these words will not let me sleep. :D
KANDINSKY'S THOUGHTS
Random exerpts from "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" by Wassily Kandinsky, 1977 Dover Edition of 1914 translation "The Art of Spiritual Harmony." (ISBN:0-486-23411-8)
• "I value those artists who are really artists ... who consciously or unconsciously, in an entirely original form, embody the expression of their inner life; who work only for this end and cannot work otherwise."
• "Every work of art is the child of its age and, in many cases, the mother of our emotions. It follows that each period of culture produces an art of its own which can never be repeated. Efforts to revive the art-principles of the past will at best produce an art that is still-born. ... Such imitation is mere aping. Externally the monkey completely resembles a human being; he will sit holding a book in front of his nose, and turn over the pages with a thoughtful aspect, but his actions have for him no real meaning."
• "Our minds, which are even now only just awakening after years of materialism, are infected with the despair of unbelief, of lack of purpose and ideal. The nightmare of materialism, which has turned the life of the universe into an evil, useless game, is not past; it holds the awakening soul still in its grip. Only a feeble light glimmers like a tiny star in a vast gulf of darkness. This feeble light is but a presentiment, and the soul, when it sees it, trembles in doubt whether the light is not a dream, and the gulf of darkness reality."
• "After the period of materialist effort ... the soul is emerging, purged by trials and sufferings. Shapeless emotions such as fear, joy, grief, etc., which belonged to this time of effort, will no longer greatly attract the artist. He will endeavor to awake subtler emotions, as yet unnamed. Living himself a complicated and comparatively subtle life, his work will give to those observers capable of feeling them lofty emotions beyond the reach of words."
Although use of the word lofty seems to me to come from an antiquated paradigm of heirarchical classes of existence, this last statement really captures why the works that I do need to be visual and not verbal. Visual art has the ability to communicate not only on a sub-verbal or pre-verbal level, but on many levels, expressing many aspects of a concept simultaneously. This gestalt experience of an aspect of being can only happen in a non-linear medium such as visual art and it allows the more subtle effects of more simple experiences to be conveyed.
For instance - what is joy?
There are many ways to experience joy. Creating a simple allegorical image of the experience of joy is impossible. It happens on too many levels, for too many reasons and with too many repercussions.
STELLAR FLAME
Addresses the experience of joy that comes from an opening of the heart. Frequently experienced at deep levels of meditation or during breakthrough Reiki sessions or after successful removal of emotional blocks through hypnosis, this opening to universal connection with all life can course through your entire being, the joy raising not only the spirit and mind, but premeating right down to the physical, cellular level.
WAVES
Addresses the joy of the opening of the heart at another level. Union with another individual soul, whether expressed physically or not, creates a compromise, a slight dissolution of the soul. In blending with another's energy, we surrender some of what we are to become something we've not been before. There is growth in this surrender and a powerful, joyful release of our contained sense of self at the same time we assert ourselves onto another. It can almost be a case of two souls merging like atoms in a super-collider.
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