I am beginning a new voyage into unknown territory - the worldly dimension of Art. When I was young I drew, painted, and loved making art but then I stopped, pursuing Words instead. Thinking and reason became my tools of worldly investigation, science the field of my attention. But last night I saw the language of Art and it is enticing me to enter a new doorway.
Over dinner with some A-list art scholars (an art museum director, a curator, and an art consultant), I really saw for the first time how art is a doorway of self-discovery and what lies in its wake.
I’m a late bloomer to the art world. In college when most students are exposed to this Truth in Humanities or Art History classes, I opted out for Feminist Studies instead (it was the early 70s). I missed the tour through the minds of artists across the ages, not learning words such as post-modernism, cubism, or names like DeKooning, Leger, etc.
Today, I still don’t have the labels or memory stores of Who’s Who in the Art world or its history, but I suddenly ‘get it’, the why and what is Art passion, Art addiction, and Art collecting alike.
Art is a means of self-discovery, a quiet, non-verbal expression of mind - one’s own attempt to share a glimpse of the vast and infinite Beauty (or Truth) through visual expression, beyond words.
All the facades of pretense I associated with Art Collectors, Art Scholars, and Art Intellectuals are stripped away when a piece of Art truly speaks.
It juts beyond all words.
Finding such a piece of art - one speaking of Truth clearly - must be like wading through a vast body of moving water to find a single lily pad delicately balanced in stillness. I don’t know exactly, right now it is just a feeling, I’ve never before taken this road. But for the first time last night I see an uncharted land lies ahead of me - a world of Art and Artists attempting to convey this Truth through a language I am just beginning to learn.
I feel as though I was handed a flashlight in a dark room and beckoned to begin to explore.
Hahahaha…it’s funny to me as an artist that you should have dinner with art academics. You should instead just sit down and draw and paint and let it all come out in free expression or express what you are feeling thru your art. Other can look at it and they will feel what they will. The nice thing is that you can put your art in a frame and it will take on a nice meaning when you hang it on the wall. When you are ready for a change you simply paint something new, or a collage or whatever you find you like. If you have kids nearby, it makes it much more fun! Picasso once said that he spent a lifetime learning to draw and paint so it would be as effortless as when children draw and paint.
Not wanting to turn on the TV this morning and be assaulted by stories of murder, war, recalcitrant Republicans, I instead went to the HuffPost. As I was scrolling down the front page, I saw “Can Medication Change Your Genes”–normally I may have bypassed that, meditation being something I have tried unsuccessfully to make part of my everyday life, but I opened it up. And there was my “Daily Gift from the Universe” in learning about Susan Smalley and her work. Thank you!
Susan, what a lovely post here. If you click to our website, http://www.lovingart.net, you’ll see why I appreciated it so much. My husband and I teach a way of looking at art that depends entirely on viewer response. You should see how faces light up when folks begin to express insights and feelings while looking! My husband is a graduate of the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU. Many years ago, a professor told him “Art historians just don’t know how to look.” He caught on right then. And after watching students struggle with art, he came up with a wonderful “technique” for looking, a sort of “surrendering” to the art. It sounds like you’ve done the same.
I wish you a wonderful art journey. It’s really self-discovery while gazing! There’s nothing like it in the world!
Hello Susan Smalley,
I am happy that you have experienced being with Art! I just read your interview on the Huffington Post about the MARC and your studies. I have been finding a lot of information lately about meditation (being present) and its effects on changing the brain and DNA. So I am happy to have found the resource of your blog and the work you’ve been doing!
This year I have had the blessing of becoming an art teacher at an alternative high school for at-risk youth. During this time with these young people, I have been observing how making art is changing their lives. Some people couldn’t even spend 5 minutes without getting frustrated. By the end of the year most of them could spend the whole class period in total concentration, being with their creations and having awesome experiences. I wonder how that might have changed their genetic expression, and the path of their lives.
I am looking forward to getting back to school and being with them, recharging the batteries in their flashlights…I am happy to have discovered you and your work!
Thank you,
Janey Dean Luessen