Unfortunately, my summer was unproductive as far as new art making was concerned, but I have done a lot of research, and I've been diving in, and scavenging for relevant information at full force since school started. From the psychological connotations of the circle (which I have made the main object of my work) to it's rich spiritual symbolism revered in other cultures, mainly Islam, I have delved into a new school year with renewed passion for what I am doing.
For an English class I had to read a couple of wonderful pieces and I wanted to share them here because I feel like these are ideas that influence my work, and perhaps all art. In my opinion, Art is the human experience explored. So here are a couple of things for our minds to chew on as we consider life and experience, and exploring it.
Quote from Joyas Voladores: "We are utterly open with no one, in the end - not mother and father, nor wife or husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart. Perhaps we must. Perhaps we could not bear to be so naked, for fear of a constantly harrowed heart. When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child, that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall. You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a woman's second glance, a child's apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother's papery ancient hand in the thicket of your hair, the memory of you father's voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children." - Brian Doyle
Here's a second link to another profoundly moving article:
A Sin by Brian Doyle
