New Photo Album: Promised Land

I've posted a new photo album of art work and some poetry that traces a few lines through my life and my relationship with the desert, a place that holds special significance for me and is often source, muse, and conversation partner in my experiments with visual art. The link is in the left sidebar.

Art is many things for me. At the most basic level, making art is fun. The engagement with the materials, be they paint or paper, cast away pieces of wood, feathers or seeds, is always rich. The material world is true to itself and behaves in its own fashion. You have to understand the properties of what you are working with and let them draw you into what is possible. What is initially imagined is rarely realized but the reward is often something much more interesting.

Making art is also an exercise in seeing, really looking at something closely and allowing myself to be influenced by it. I have made a lot of art out of natural objects like seeds and wood and rocks to develop an aesthetic appreciation for what occurs naturally. The world expresses itself in tremendous diversity and complexity. We often attribute this to rather dry and mechanical reasons of adaptation and survival of the fittest and all that, and overlook the possibility that this beautiful diversity, the red patch on a black bird’s wing for example, or the waxy diamonds on the shell of a desert tortoise, reflect a cosmic impulse towards the beautiful as well as the useful. A roadrunner has red, white, and blue stripes over its eyes! And what story lies behind the knots and stains in a common piece of plywood, a tree turned into a commodity (an inexpensive one at that) that retains its unique character despite the glues and formaldehyde?

Making art is also a way into, as well as beyond, myself. I started painting and taking my interest in art seriously when my life was a shambles. Making art is one of the most healing activities that I know, besides taking a long walk far away from the sounds of traffic, petting a cat, or sleeping between clean sheets. If you let go of the desire to make something “good,” a valuable conversation may begin that continues long after the project is formally completed. Which leads me to my next point...

Making art is an exercise in taking my interests seriously, beginning with the discovery of them. Interests are not the equivalent of concerns. I have many concerns ---intolerance and world peace, global warming, justice, consumerism, the shaky economy, my financial situation, the pain in my arms, and the possibility of too many rattlesnakes in my yard this summer. These concerns can consume all of my energy and lead me to forget my connection to the world itself. Then I lose enthusiasm; I find it hard to care or keep going. My interests flow from what I love and these sustain me. In an essay about writing, Annie Dillard says that the task is not to write about what you love, but to write about what only you love. I think this speaks to any creative act because the greatest gift we have is our attention. That opens all the doors.

Finally, making art is an attempt to enter into and appreciate beauty, and to make something beautiful myself. My efforts are primitive but essential to my experience of love of self and Other.

Please check out the album (subscribers, that means you have to visit the site). Hope you enjoy it.