This Foundling is called Spring although it certainly feels like summer is here. So I was thinking about creating. About the process. I keep going around and around in this little thought rut. Creating art, at it's core seems completely narcissistic. As if to say, "It's art, because I say it's art". The artist has to follow their creative muse. If they don't, they are following a trend, following the money, or following someone else. But if they are only following their own vision, by what yardstick does one use to judge what art is? What map do you use to find the direction to set out on? What do you use to assess that you have achieved your goal?
I do have some very over simplified thoughts of the differing aesthetic directions. It seems of little use to use only representational art as a guide. By that measure, the best artists would be only the best technicians. An incredible freedom is to be found in abstract art but all too often abstract art is used as an excuse for anything.
There is the theoretical path and often there is much to explore in these realms. But this path, however, like a conversation worth having, seems inspiring only when one is open to that particular conversation. There is a spiritual path but for me, this is the path least well understood to me. Then there is beauty. It would seem that beauty has been a bit passe of late. How sad to say that beauty, like an excuse, could be seen as a mere empty gesture.
True, there is a huge difference between, say painting something beautiful and capturing its beauty; and the painting of something distasteful and capturing a beauty that lies beyond surface and form. But beauty seems to be the place that I choose not to lose sight of. The reference point that must be reckoned with. For if I have lost sight of beauty, then I have lost sight of art. What is beautiful? I know it when I see it.
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