Saturday, February 25, 2017

The Art of a New Life Blueprint





Yes, I'm back. Its been almost five years since I have written here. And in five years wars can begin and end, great works of literature can be born, countries can be established. Well, to be clear, I cannot say that anything of that level has happened in my life but I can say with absolute certainty that the plates in the earth under my feet shifted. I walked down the path that was well worn and completely recognizable as the road to "home" and one day two years ago that path vanished. So "home" began to be an abstract thought and not a place anymore. A reality sea change. This period I am now finally out of, that began in earnest two years ago left me with a cognative dissonance that left little energy for my work. So my output has been just 3 paintings in this period. Some painters in history take these blows from life and use them like a well worn brush or a new color or material to make a wonderful work from. I could not. I did these three paintings and came up for air each time. 'Ce N'est Pas Du Sang' above is the latest. It looks the most brutal and yet it is my most hopeful. I could never have painted this in the middle of the battle. In the midst of heartbreak. Never. This painting is like my new dawn of the heart. It is my talisman of strength. I used an homage to Magritte as the title because it's important to distinguish between art and life. And for me, between images and reality, honesty and a lie. That was my new path replacing the now vanished one.
I'm still building my new "home" and I am using the Endless House blueprint from our beloved family friend Frederick Kiesler... "All ends meet in the "Endless" as they meet in life. Life's rhythms are cyclical. All ends of living meet during twenty-four hours, during a week, a lifetime. They touch one another with the kiss of time. They shake hands, stay, say goodbye, return through the same or other doors, come and go through multi-links, secretive or obvious, or through the whims of memory." 
When I sat on Kiesler's frail but strong legs as a child I listened to dear Frederick with the attention of a wide eye little girl in love. Nothing short of a miracle to have come to find that the blueprint to my new life was within my memory the whole time. There is nothing like being born into the right family. Nothing. My home never left. It has been there the entire time. Waiting.

















2 comments:

  1. Welcome back. I am one of those who tries to NOT distinguish between art and life, but I suspect that this is mere semantics and that we probably actually agree on this sort of thing. Your painting is a powerful statement, what's next?

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  2. Thank you and yes, I bet we would end up in the same place in our conversation eventually. ;-) What is next is on my easel and merely awaiting my hand because the idea is already formed and primed and ready to go! I will post it hopefully not too long from now. It's a big one so who knows? I thank you for your interest in my work!

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