“The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary picture is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his essay “Circles”
Tag Archives: Thursday Thoughts
Thursday Thoughts: Circles
Filed under Art, Drawing, Essays, Jacob Rowan Studios, Quotes, Thursday Thoughts
Thursday Thoughts: White and Red
“Red is the most joyful and dreadful thing in the physical universe; it is the fiercest note, it is the highest light, it is the place where the walls of this world of ours wear thinnest and something beyond burns through.
White is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. God paints in many colors; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.”
Does anybody have any good quotes about black as a color?
Filed under Art, Drawing, Jacob Rowan Studios, Painting, Quotes, Thursday Thoughts
Thursday Thoughts:
Art exists adjacent to the artist’s performed persona.
Filed under Art, Jacob Rowan Studios, Thursday Thoughts
Thursday Thoughts: Interesting Object, Semantic Gesture, or Speculative Fiction
I want to make art that functions at three levels:
- As an interesting object that invites consideration. Because an artwork is a thing and a sign rather than a language or code it can invoke a variety of images and feelings in a viewer that become closely connected to their personal experiences. At that level I’m not communicating through art so much as sending interesting (and hopefully beautiful) objects out into the world for others to enjoy.
- As a semantic gesture. Rather than seeing art in terms of form and content I like to think of art as a gesture of communication that has its own internal logic and structure. My hope is that a patient viewer who saw several of my pieces and perhaps read my artist’s statement could construct their perceptions into something resembling the sense I had while creating the work. Of course it’s not an exact translation (that’s half the fun of art), but perhaps they can see a gesture of my idea.
- As a speculative fiction. Every aspect of my process from the theorizing I do here to the practical decisions made in the studio construct a speculative fiction–a metaphorical microcosm within the fullness of reality and lived experience. To make art is to isolate and imaginatively engage with a facet of life. Just as a work of fiction like Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 presents a picture for how the world might be, I hope the entire scope of my practice presents a model for how the world might be seen or engaged with.
Filed under Art, Jacob Rowan Studios, Thursday Thoughts
Thursday Thoughts: A possible definition of creativity
The official definition of creativity (according to the New Oxford American Dictionary) is: the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.
I would like to suggest an alternative definition.
Creativity is the structuring of the chaos and brokenness of our world into some kind of order.
Within that definition everyone from air traffic controllers and bankers to painters and bakers are engaged in creative activity.
Filed under Art, creativity, Jacob Rowan Studios, Thursday Thoughts
Thursday Thoughts: Art as Alchemy
I was looking through Cirlot’s Dictionary of Symbols and found this description of Alchemy:
Alchemy is a symbolic technique which seeks to materialize spiritual truths. It is a poetic, religious, and scientific endeavor. The goal is to experience material phenomena as symbols which point to a complete theory of the universe and the destiny of the soul (the secret of discovering gold would be a mark of divine favor and thus success). [paraphrased from my notes and memory rather than quoted word for word]
While it’s not a perfect metaphor, the notion of Alchemy is a helpful model for my own artistic process.
Filed under Art, Jacob Rowan Studios, Quotes, Thursday Thoughts