Here's to Art in a New Year
The last two years have been challenging, to say the least. For some artists, the limitations have led to enhanced creativity. For others, they have resulted in a desert of sorts. Rather than discuss an exhibit or a specific topic, I'm going to end this year and begin the new one with a series of quotes and accompanying images to reflect on. Though I’ve shared some of them with some of you in the past, may they inspire all of us to continue evolving in our creativity, however that manifests in our lives. May 2022 find you healthy and thriving.
Firewood in Russia. Photo by Dmitri Makeev.
Source: commons.wikimedia.org/
The purpose of art is not to present something that's beautiful, but it is to force us to see the world in a new way, in a way we haven't yet done. --Stephen Batchelor
Evening, McDonald Lake, Glacier National Park (1942). Photo by Ansel Adams. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Source: commons.wikimedia.org/
Art is both love and friendship and understanding: the desire to give. It is not charity, which is the giving of things. It is more than kindness, which is the giving of the self. It is both the taking and giving of beauty, the turning out to the light the inner folds of the awareness of the spirit. It is the recreation on another plane of the realities of the world; the tragic and wonderful realities of earth and men, and of all the interrelations of these. --Ansel Adams
Yayoi Jar, Japanese pottery from 1st - 3rd century.
Source: commons.wikimedia.org
Human beings want something beautiful to live with. That is not a shallow desire. It affects our well-being...We have the feeling that the world doesn't need artists because art doesn't meet our basic needs to survive. But that's not true...Even the most primitive cultures have decorative art. They always needed to...aestheticize and exteriorize their thoughts and feelings. --Beatriz Milhazes
TR III (1994), gold-embossed screenprint by Anni Albers. Source: socks-studio.com/2015/07/21/abstraction-from-the-amerindian-tradition-to-modernism-textile-works-by-anni-albers/
Simplicity stands at the end, not at the beginning of a work. If education can lead us to elementary seeing, away from too much and too complex information, to the quietness of vision, and discipline of forming, it again may prepare us for the task ahead, working for today and tomorrow. --Anni Albers
The Kiss (1913), by Constantin Brancusi.
Source: commons.wikimedia.org/
Works of art are mirrors in which each person sees his own likeness. --Constantin Brâncuşi
Graffiti referring to Ai Wei Wei on a wall in Hong Kong. Source: commons.wikimedia.org/
The duty of the artist is to protect freedom of speech. That is the soul of creativity. - -Ai Wei Wei
Yokkaichi: Mie River, from the series “Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road” (1833-34), by Utagawa Hiroshige. Source: mfa.org/collections/.
We are all influenced by other artists. Art brings about art. --Lee Krasner
Seacoast at Trouville (1881), by Claude Monet.
Source: mfa.org/collections/
In Asia, the New Year is celebrated on dates other than January 1. There are usually bells, gongs, and chanting. Here’s a 7-minute video that was not necessarily made for New Year’s Day, but which has a feeling of ushering in the possibility of a better year. The images remind me of what an enchanted planet we live on. Whatever religious/spiritual tradition you follow, I hope The Great Bell Chant leaves you with a sense of hope and peace for 2022. As Hannah Arendt has expressed: “…even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect some illumination….”
