Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Love in Art: Simple or Complex?


"Familiar acts are made beautiful through Love," so it is said.
I'm in thorough agreement here, and so it is easy to look around to see whom I love lightly, and perhaps, deeply.

It's the mustached guy with the toothbrush in his mouth, and it's the guy with the hat who bobs his head left and right every step he takes. It's also the guy who says, "good morning" in the same tone every day, clear-eyed, not knowing me at all.

It is the cat-like silhouette of a woman, jogging down the street. It is the girl with the long, long legs in the public bathroom, who looks in the mirror with eyes that might have been innocent yesterday. It is the gal who bares her chest at the trash collector and laughs and laughs and laughs as she quickly winds her way back down the street, to her home, to her young son, to her husband. It's that laugh that brings love, and the daredevil attitude. "I am alive!" she yells. She is.

When we make art every line we draw, every stroke we paint, every conscious or unconscious step, comes from a place similar to this sense of appreciation. It's basically looking at the world within and without oneself, and admitting "You, out there, whatever you are, I might love you or I might hate you (war imagery) but I also respect you, honor you... because you are real and you are fascinating."

There's no room for embarrassment here. No room for low cuts about sentimentality. In the deepest form of art there is nothing but that experience of monumental connection with the subject, product be damned. It is the wealth of the universe that some artists are actually able to convey this depth of connection, through their art, to the people around them. It is the luck of the universe that some of these people perceive.