When the Transaction from Art is Insight

I've always wanted to use my art to make a record of a personal discovery. What I see, what I read, people that I have spent time with - this all inspires me. And my first impulse is to record those insights through art-making.

It's almost as though I need to be moving my hands and working with materials in order to process life. I suppose some people have therapists for that; me, I like keeping my own company and working through stuff with oils or rulers and knives or gilded patches on vellum.

Sometimes the transaction that art produces, at least in me the artist, is insight. It is a completion, a fulfillment, a sorting and an ordering of what has occurred in my life, placing it in the proper context and location within my self. It's been like this for most of my life, so it's not likely to be changing any time soon.

This all comes from a recent New York Times Magazine Letter from the Editor, in which @NYTMag Editor Hanya Yanagihara asks the question ‘What Should We Expect of Art?’ She writes, "And then there’s us, the audience. What is our role in the artist’s life? It’s to look, of course, and to do so closely, and with generosity. And sometimes it’s to champion..."

Here's the link.

#artandtheology

#womensart

#artist

#illuminationstudio

#melahlborn