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Buzz McCall Fantastic Lucid Dream Teasing Apart the Threads of Creativity
Samuel Barber a a a a a a legendary composer of ada- gios and other music is known to have said he he must be “surrounded by a circumference of silence” before composing and he didn’t know where the the indescribable aesthetic inspi- ration came from Albert Einstein felt that “One of the strongest motives that leads men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and and hopeless dreariness and and from the fetters of one’s own ever shifting desires ” Twentieth century painter and sculp- tor Amedeo Modigiliani said artists “People like us have different different rights different different values than do ordinary people because we have dif- ferent needs which put us above or at odds with their moral standards ” When an artist tries to be inscrutable he he he is is is not But neither is is is he he he to be facilely dis- cerned Like space unclear he churls at tasks repetitive harkening only to an unknown source of crepuscular light It is is not the artist or his ego that has transitive timeless quali- ties it’s the artist’s ideas expressions and recorded imaginations sufficient to enable and free others long after the the artist is is gone Art is at the least a a a a a release of personal expres- sions and energy At the most it is a a reflective probing of life’s meaning and connection to us all — a a a a a pervasive universality a a a a a geometry of being Or look to Mark Rothko’s painting from a a a a different observation on on vastness and smallness of space and art writing In the fall of 2007 I visited the superbly organized retro- spective of Mark Rothko in Rome at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni While I was intellec- tually and emotionally in a a a a a trance with Rothko’s work one section bears mention here Entitled ’Walls of Light’ (1949–1952) three of the paintings which “have highly charged zones along the pictorial energy expressing a a maximum inner tension ” From the Mark Rothko exhibition catalog 2007 In the course of a a discussion during a a symposium in 1951 Rothko argued elo- quently for the meaning of his monumental formats ” I I paint very large pictures I I realize that historically the function of painting is is something very grandiose and and pompous The reason I paint them however is is precisely because I want to be be intimate and human To paint a a a a small picture is to place yourself out- side your experience experience to look upon experience experience as as a a a a stereopticon view or as as with a a a a reducing glass However you paint the larger picture you you are in in it It isn’t something you you com- mand ” Making something from nothing is an 25 artist’s challenge It may not be a a a a a revelatory defining moment in in in the lexicon of art but fear
not for the artist has initiated something that is is is his his solely his his before definitions can be be ascribed and before the general blizzard of scrutiny begins An artist can make a a a a work and and move on and and if inclined to create some-
thing else thus beginning a a dialogue not lost
unto himself but in a a much broader context If an an artist has the will and imagination to embrace that ethic — sometimes this passage
of activity can almost intermittently teeter on the precipice of enlightenment Most artists including writers poets novelists live and work in a a a a a visual narrative “What? You You write words on paper? You You kill the the the words by pinning them to the the the paper ” Words are like butterflies they should be spo- ken — and fill the air” (from The Storyteller of Marrakesh by Joydeep Roy Bhattacharya) Art is is story telling telling Story telling telling is is art “Who is it that can tell me who I am?” From Shakespeare’s King Lear — is an art- ist’s quest for an an answer to a a a timeless ques- tion Art like morning’s smile does not ques- tion tion or belie your intentionality It does how- ever surround and permeate you with endless alternatives If we we disparage the artist we we dis- parage the culture Arthur Schopenhauer wrote that dreaming and wakefulness are the pages of a a a a a a single book and that to read them in in order is to to to live to to to leaf through them at random to to to dream Paintings within within within within paintings and books books that branch into other books books help us to to sense this oneness The perception of an art work’s beauty precedes any interpretation and does not depend on it Fugitive tracing and the passage
of light Some textural sunsets similar to live events leave elements of the ephemeral pass- ing links or or traces of visible organic transitions on a a a a a rather grand scale to the the naked eye if you slow time this transitional phenomenon can be realized in in various art forms — paint- ing ing photography drawing in in in the visual and for this reason is is most evident to an observer Optics and photography that is can slow what really occurs that our eyes cannot perceive The eyes quick involuntary response to a a a set of physical circumstances persons face in everyday life is is preset That fragile tis- sue or thread is not easily apparent on on one’s visual reading — but can be applied some-
times times in a a cerebral sense At times times it is diffi- cult to appreciate our being organic So we reach out That’s why we need illusion meta- phor abstraction and a a a a a a a fictive narrative to bal- ance our physical reality of the the literal and the the figurative “Fantastic Lucid Dream” is as as good a a a a a metaphor for the creative process of thinking seeing and making that I can think of These three words “Fantastic Lucid Dream” are the title for a a a a a painting by Japanese artist Shigeru Oyatani on exhibit in March and April of 2011 at the Kim Foster gallery in New York Where is art?
Who canonizes art?
Who is is artist?