what we see

7th station, in progress, studio

I've been invited to participate in a group show curated by an incredible artist and acquaintance at U Dayton (I'm big in Ohio, ladies and gentlemen, what can I say?).   The assignment was simple, but it's gotten me thinking about appropriation and images and seeing.  Painting, and really all art-making I can think of, involves an altered perception.  Not the kind you get from substances, but an altered sense of looking/listening/experiencing a thing.  It's taken me decades to fully grasp that I see the world fundamentally differently than most people; that I experience the world around me profoundly differently.  So if I take an image and rotate it and reverse it and filter it, it becomes a thing it was not before.  My active experience and interaction alters the thing itself, and thus forever changes the perceptions of others as well.

It's said that we don't really know what art is, but we know it when we see it.  I'd add to that Jerry Saltz's famous quip, "art can be for anybody, it's just not for everybody."   The viewer has a responsibility in encountering art.  I really don't think a painting is done until someone has seen it.  For me, seeing people see the work gives me closure.  I'm not responsible for what they take away, but I'm very interested in what they bring.

If you think about it, every one of us is alone in the universe.  We are experiencing life and our surroundings in a unique and solitary way.  "Blue" to me isn't necessarily blue to you, and so on.  Artists train themselves to trust this.  We invite it in and use it, and we attempt to bring those perceptions to a table of universality through the personal.  I think artists are sharing people.  It makes it especially hard for us to understand those who do not share.

Over time, I've developed a way of using my medium to facilitate what I see and communicate it to others.  I eschew the common notion of inspiration, but truth be told I walk around in a constant state of being inspired by everything.  I'll stop and take pictures of clouds, or puddles because I find them remarkable.  All that looking has brought about a way of seeing; or is it the other way around? 

I'm long overdue for a trip to NYC.  Good conversation is hard to find in this town.