Friday, July 8, 2011

Reprise: July 8, 2010: The Birdwatcher

 
Today I got email from a friend who visited my blog for the first time, and generously complimented my artwork. This made my day and prompted me to go back and take a look myself. I clicked on a tag at random, and was taken to this collage, which I made on July 8, 2010. Coincidence? Of course…

I have often wondered why, given how much I love my garden, I don’t do art inspired by it. I guess because I don’t need to. I have the real garden, and that is sufficient. Gardening moves me into another place, another state of mind, as does making art, but the two don’t intersect. Very little of my art has ever come from my day-to-day life, rather it comes from a place inside myself--where I would much rather spend my day-to-day life, if only I could discover how to merge the two. For me, that place contains mystery, humor, beauty, longing, and a magic lantern of images lovely, nostalgic, and sometimes bizarre. They flit across my mind, often so quickly I wonder if I’ll ever capture them on paper. In an instant the whole totality of the work, its flavor, colors, mood, vividly appears. The challenge of all art making is to fashion a piece that catches the viewer in a similar way and compels them to share the artist’s internal experience.

One evening last week while trolling through iTunes, I played some music (Manu Chao) that I listened to a lot when I was making collages for 3SIXTY5 last year, and I was amazed at how much the music awakened echoes of that most creative 7 months of my life. I had to turn it off and won’t listen again until I’m ready to make the time to work. But it’s tantalizing to know that this trigger exists to help me recreate that magical state of mind where creativity rules.

For now, back to the garden...

2 comments:

  1. What a wonderful pucture Deann! I don't remember seeing this one before. xx

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  2. Hi Diane, hope everything's fine for you ! I'm slowly back to blogging after some health problems and it's nice visiting you, beautiful pics and artwork, congrats ! I also inform you that the link to my free images is no longer available (closed) and it appears that someone uses the link, please would you be so kind to cancel this link, it's not mine at all ! thank you so much for understanding :) Have a wonderful day, love

    ReplyDelete

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