Summer scribble

Watercolor and ink, c. 4.5"x4.5".

Gorka's "Silence"/Charcoal Portrait-Figure

So, art is art, I guess.  There wasn't anything particular in mind when I did these two drawings...same day I think.  I wasn't "trying" to capture a mood, feeling; employ a particular process or technique....they just came out the way they came out.  The lower one might look sort of morbid (?) but I really think that's just me, right now, today, here at this moment.  My father is near death, having chosen to forgo any additional treatment for the medical condition from which he suffers....so, stillness, silence, quietude, finality and the temporal, infuse my thoughts, perhaps on all or many subjects.
But another viewer may see that piece differently, likely will see differently.  And therein the dimensions of artistic "expression", perhaps better described as artistic "observation"?
When I feel this way, analytical for lack of a better term, I slowly become aware of what is absent: the pleasure, pain or balance which flows from recognizing feelings. Just by virtue of considering, in an intellectual way,  what a work might mean, I might be ignoring my own emotional state at any particular time....and I might be pushing important feelings aside.  Ah, maybe that's the real contribution of art; if we let it, it can connect us to our feelings!  Maybe?

The youtube piece is a really bad slideshow accompanied by a really good piece by John Gorka, a musician I admire.  He does art with words and music and music is just as susceptible to analytical limitations as any picture; the picture he paints with words is open to multiple interpretations. Enjoy!

One of three pieces I am showing at Artspace Community Art Center in Greenfield, Massachusetts as part of a show entitled Bodies of Work.  The show opens on October 12, 2011 and runs through early November.