More About Art Making
Our relationship with objects and the meaning they bring to our lives is full of complexity. Why do we collect certain things? Why are some objects so important to us? What are the objects we hold on to saying to us? It seems to me that objects just like our bodies are only temporary things. But the messages, meaning and stories within them transcend time. We see parts of ourselves and others in them and are reminded once more we are not alone.
“To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.” Emmanuel, Cardinal Suhard
“Time Travel Control Panel” painted paper circles 3″ x 3″ mounted on Black Paper 8′ x 8′. Each circle depicts a iconic cultural image from different time periods in history.
Living in the Space Between
Frederick Bueckner … “the invisible manifests itself in the visible.”
After years of thinking about “things, stuff and objects” I keep coming back to this thought. Pretty is to Beauty, as Happy is to Joy, as Temporary is to Eternal, as the Visible is to Invisible.
Everyday living, work, relationships, just surviving, can overwhelm us. Those unseen but eternal aspects of our being are ploughed over by the process of just getting by from day to day.
In this vulnerable state we tend to see only the visible and the temporary as the most important aspects of life. Partly, art exist as way to restore awe and wonder…helping us see the other and ourselves beyond the temporal.
What Things will Last
Paying attention to things ignored or seemingly unimportant reveals the invisible
” If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.” Rachel Carson
River Installation. The shapes our living takes from time to time