It Is My Hope

Featured image: Reaching for the Sky

It is my hope that my art helps teach others how to think conceptually. What do I mean by that? Well, first one needs to think and to want to think. Basically, it means the practice of connecting abstract things. For example, the fluid flow of paint for me, conceptually thinking deepens how I look at that fluid flow of paint. It change how I relate to it and how I give it a chance to be. A conceptual thinker can understand and see abstract elements, process them easily for ideas or concepts from these ideas.

Many use reason to take abstract elements and create concepts out of them. An example would be physicians thinking reasonably, or using reason to suggest proper procedures for preventing COVID. I like to think I am a reasonable thinker. I also believe reason isn’t the answer to everything. Reason needs an opposite to make sense. For me, that opposite is the concepts created from the abstractions that I create when I first put paint to paper. Reason needs creativity to exist.

Some would say perhaps that reason only needs common sense or pragmatics for its opposite. Common sense or pragmatics just aren’t an opposite to reason. Common sense, in essence, is a reality formed concept. It is not enough when it comes to integrate complex abstract issues and abstractions. For that, one needs to understand the basic tenants of philosophy and theory. Without philosophy or theory and the ability to think that way, we would all be wandering sheep following a leader blindly. Sometimes I think that we are anyway.

Anyway – thinking conceptually in art and having it be part of my work over all is my way of sharing my philosophical thinking and reasoning with others. Hopefully, my thoughts will trigger thoughts from my readers and viewers. My hope is that they, too, can begin to understand philosophical, political (I believe politics is based on philosophy more than reason.) concepts.