"Quite so, Watson.
You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear."
...........................................................................................(Sherlock Holmes)
Time flows faster when we're
younger because new experiences are coming at us all the time.
The unknown lies ahead of us, waiting to be discovered, inspiration
not a problem. When we get older the world has gotten older too.
Fewer things surprise us. We start repeating ourselves without
realizing it. This is the time the artist and the mathematician
dread. We see our creativity going down the drain. We have been
there and done that. Time seems to speed up and we can see Death
down the road, trying to thumb a ride.
But wait a minute
. That too is inspiring! That may be one
of the "future" images this show promises. Recently
I sat in on a life modeling class at UALR and did some terracotta
sculptures. I thought of it as just an exercise, since all of
us were working from the same poses and I already knew what a
naked woman looks like--or so I thought. But nobody else's sculptures
looked like mine, and it was as if I had never seen a woman before!
Entropy, in the form of an angry bird, appeared out of nowhere.
Art had somehow emerged from the exercise. And then going home
late one night from one of those classes, I got out of my car
and was ambushed by the universe. A sky full of menacing constellations,
with Venus and Jupiter drawing a bead on this planet I was standing
on! It was as if I had never seen the sky before. I'm still trying
to paint it.
For an artist, the trick is to preserve one's insanity. Sometimes
I think I've been cured and doomed to repeat myself until I catch
up to that damned hitchhiker. But then the Muse shows me something
I have seen but never observed, and I realize I'm still crazy
after all.
Warren Criswell, May 5, 2012 |
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