October 29, 2021 Weekly Musings

Blogs:

The Hammer

Featured image: Old Growth

The sound of a hammer pounding in the distance disturbs the sound of the breeze moving through the sun dappled trees in the woods.

Art and Life

Featured image: Life is like a Box of Chocolates

Art can never be anything and everything. For me art and life are one and the same. If you think of yourself as a work of art and you treasure your freedoms and your individuality, then you are creating you life as a work of art, one-o- a-kind, unique, original and beautiful. If life and art are not free, then they can be anything and everything which in turn, would be nothing. If art and life are free then life is authentic and art is authentic, real, unique, one-of-a-kind, independent of blending in and of being part of the herd.

Artist's Stories

Featured image: Loon II

If you read or listen to some of the stories of an artist, they will share with you their journey of self discovery and resilience. As you listen you will find dedicated souls who have traveled life's journeys that made them vulnerable, brave, gritty and unpretentious, authentic and real. Their stories are stories that cannot be faked and their optimism also cannot be faked. Their stories will tell you what they have learned. Most of them will tell you that they roll with the punches and keep nature by their side always as a guiding poetic light. They will tell you that their souls, their spirits are like the wind, sometimes gentle, sometimes fierce but always authentic and always real. As they share these stories and the journeys that they have taken, you cannot help but notice their authenticity. If you cannot, well, perhaps that artist still has some parts of their selves, their souls and their independence to find.

Born Free

Featured image: Orange Finch

The wind through the trees gives them breath to breathe. The wind through the trees becomes part of the spirit of the tree, its knurled ruggedness, its stately stature, its longevity, or not. The wind is also the earth's breath. It makes the earth come alive with wind-swept cliffs, and tumbled rocks on a shore polished by tumbling in the sand as the waves break along a shore, waves that are caused by the wind.

The breath of the wind also gives breathe to me. It is a part of me, myself, soul and spirit. It is part of the rules and thoughts in which I operate. I have always understood the wind as wild and free. Do you know “free as the wind blows” that Andy Williams song, “Born Free?”

Born free, as free as the wind blows


As free as the grass grows


Born free to follow your heart


Live free and beauty surrounds you…

What I came to know when I was 6 years old and in kindergarten was that I loved the freedom that a drip of paint had on a piece of thin newsprint as I would begin to paint which was my favorite activity in kindergarten. I could make my own marks on the paper to be part of the drips. The paintings were innocent. But, what I became aware of that year in school was something that would follow me all of my life. I became aware of the fact that it was not going to be easy to entrap me, for I was more like that drip on that thin newsprint and the colorful marks made along side that drip and the other drips. I became aware of the freedom that happens when you allow another to follow who they are naturally. I became aware that others did not always like that, and I became aware that it was something I would forever fight for.

The life of freedom for me is like the life of the wind moving through the trees.

Living Wildly

Featured image: Northern Lights - Shooting Stars

When you listen to the stories an artist tells you about themselves and about their work, you will notice that they live a life that is on the edge. They live their life wildly. Their concern is to live, and live life their way. They participate in the world around them, large or small. Their home and their studios are an open place. The trails they choose to travel on always make them feel like they belong there – where ever there is. They are very independent and unique. They are filled with discovery, stories, ideas and creativity. Granted some become complacent – and that is when their work also becomes complacent.

Perceptions Constantly Change

Featured image: Transparent Wings and Sunshine Dragonfly

Perceptions constantly change. What I think and say today will change and evolve tomorrow, and the next day and the day after that. Those who do not welcome perception as constantly changing are stuck and will never realize or be able to recognize authenticity and uniqueness.

It is not only perceptions that constantly change. There are very few things that don’t change over time. The same holds true for those who are unable to welcome change and growth are stuck. It’s not a matter of the old ways are better or that the new ways are better, sometimes they aren’t. But, the people who participate in life and who aren’t stuck, accept change and growth and are able to value which is good and which isn’t.

The same holds true with art. Art changes. It changes through styles, methods and concepts, realized or not. Those who are unable to accept change in art again are stuck. The concepts which I treasure in art, authenticity, uniqueness and one-of-a-kindness, also change. That is what makes art unique, authentic and real.