Art Statement

" There are three kinds of dancers, those for whom dancing is physical exercise, those who dance to express their emotion, and those who hand over their bodies to the inspiration of the soul."

-- Isadora Duncan

Endless Celebration

I love that quote because it resonates with my sculptures. I think to create one must give themselves to the inspired dreams and moments of their lives. We live in such a sterile world that we forget to listen to our wildness and our instincts. We are narrowed in mind by cultural rules and labels and can barely hear the whisper of the supreme force. When I sketch, sculpt or write I surrender my preconceived life and try to forget the taught technique and rules. I want to come from a more untamed and raw perspective. I want to energize my art with a sensation of living and unexpected oppositions and paradoxes. I create in hopes of evolving my sense of self and my connection to the forces and elements in life that ride that eternal wave.

There are always opposing forces and in some ways I am always trying to unify or synthesis the polarities in my life. I find that in sculpting, the yielding of the clay and then the casting into bronze helps reconcile my own unsolved conflicts. Because poetry has become somewhat of a religion for me, (I use religion as a loosely constructed manner), because I love the assembly of words to paint pictures, my sculptures are often freeze framed poems. Combining the arts brings forth a multitude of creative possibilities. It is the animating force of our lives. The breath of angels. We create to remember who we are, to reach back into our primordial genetic thoughts. The creative intellect is a shadow or our instinct. Art always consist of our memories, and usually a prayer to imitate something we remember in nature. We cannot trace the true origins or art, because it is the mythos of our souls who are the forerunners of our visions and creative dreams. There was a muddy center before we breathed. There was a myth before the myth began.

I believe that all art comes from our primordial mud. That there is as Stanley Romaine Hopper wrote "a mythological consciousness that inspires us to create". Every human has her own personal intelligence, her own authentic and ancient dream. We know it when we hear or see or feel something that makes our blood run a little faster, our hearts beat somewhat louder, the quickening of the spirit. We are guided by that personal and private intelligence. It steers us and motivates us. It becomes our muse, our dream, our own intimate reality. Dreams and art transform us into our own conversation, our own individual existence. We are freed from stereotypical labels sby reclaiming our own mythic function. Art helps us to do just that. Creativity points the way for us to our own personal freedom. Whether you sculpt, dance, paint or practice some specific task, as long as we believe in what we are doing there will be value in that action. A dear friend of mine once said that as long as we leave the world a little bit better than we found it that would be enough. Those words added to the pathos of Rilke when he wrote "Works of art are indeed always products of having been in danger, of having gone to the very end in an experience, to where man can go no further."

These are my thoughts - 2007