Written 2013
Principles
Art and More
I was thinking this morning about art and the many vectors and pulls I’ve had. For a while I tried to refine it into one lean sharp instrument. To some extent I did that, but one can’t just surgically remove the past. Perhaps in the past one could be consistently whole , but the truth is I am made up of pieces. My whole is to accept these pieces.
The previous pulls and influences I now realize had validity in their own right. They are not to be discounted. They existed for good reason. They offered or could have their own rewards. I think about this. They were part of life lived, and can’t be rejected.
I think as we go on we have to acknowledge all of ourselves. All the contradictions, the alternatives, the various nuances, the different roads partially taken and partially finished, it’s all us. We are not fully unified. There’s too much to fit into one mold. We have to embrace it all and move on.
This doesn’t mean we drop what we do. We continue just what we do because it is what is before us. But we are not excluding what was part of us previously. That exists too and should not be harshly judged. We move forward, are drawn forward but this time we take everything with us, all of ourselves. Somehow, it all has to be accepted, reconciled or even forgiven. A new dimension opens and from this emerging vantage point we get to see more and more of ourselves as we inch our way into the light.