The Joy of Learning
The cure for boredom is learning something new. Something you feel passionate about. For Me, it is the Visual Arts. At eighty six years of age, my hands are not competent of holding the brush and putting it to good use on a canvas. Always in control of the elements of good design and feelings of great joy in the beginning of a canvas or clay lump, now the shaky hands betray me and the feelings of emptiness of control are my reality.
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| Clay ready for casting |
Clay has always been my refuge in the whole of the thing. It transforms in my hands without any thoughts of how, or where the lines, negative spaces should be. The yielding of the clay becomes a part of the hands, and the strength of the hands are sure and firm. Today, the hands no longer have the ability to mold the clay with sureness, and the cost of casting have stilled the joy for the call of the clay and the magic of the creative process. I see other forms of sculpture and wonder if somehow, I can adapt. There is a lot of cardboard in the garage, perhaps something will wander through my musings and become a source for something new. Perhaps...
Meanwhile, the new technologies of the computer afford me with the ability to keep learning new processes of the visual arts. With Illustrator and Photoshop, the visual images in the minds eye can become something, something of incalculable possibilities. The learning processes of the digital age keep re-inventing the now into wonderful horizons of the “what ifs”. The forgiveness of the programs give the hands new vigor and sureness. Some would say that the art created in this fashion is not real art. Some would say, that originals cannot exist because of the computer's the ability to duplicate endless reproductions cancels out the creative truth of the paint pots and brush and the clay into bronze.
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In the history of art, there have always been detractors for the way art is made. The masters of old had artist assistants paint skies and the landscape. This process has not canceled out the veracity of the whole, the vision of the painting or sculpture. So to, the advent of acrylic paint. When first used by artists the cry was instant that it was not real. No oil, the luminous quality of the layers of oil were the only real paint for the creation of a painting of worth. So on it goes, the new will have its day, and the old will be the foundation for the vision of worth.
I revel in the new. The importance of learning will never cease and it will be the crucible of my digital process and keep my hands busy, the brain engaged, and most of all fulfill my desire to be an agent of change in the world for making art.
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| 2021 A year of the new |
The Cardboard in the Garage still awaits...the possibilities endless.
