In the course of making this painting, like it often happens, my mind wandered places that are quite strange and interesting; one could say, meta. The unconscious mind seems to be so free when our attention is focused on a task like art-making, that it starts to reflect upon that very activity in novel ways.I began to realize I am animated by two sources of creative inspiration at opposite ends of a spectrum.
One is light in all senses of the words; life-giving, playful, almost angelic. It is like the muses of the Greeks, or the Anima in psychological terms. A counterpart to my psyche that is somehow wiser than me, and feeds me ideas in a mist of loving images. It is also the part of the artist, I believe, that is enriched by the deep relationships in their life. To feel love for another human is like a call to this source of creative light to emerge. It engenders the desire to create things in honor of these loved ones, and as gifts for them .
The other side of inspiration, just as powerful, is a demon muse: the dark friend at the bottom of my gut that pushes the more chaotic side of art, and feeds on self-destruction. This is the ever-present death drive, as Freud identified it. The siren call to drown into a trance of desperate creation, no matter how much it may decay the body and mind afterward.
These dual sources both inform my art and I have kept them separate, because I was afraid of letting them touch each other. Now I feel like I am finally able to let them merge, in a way that is potent… to let them entwine. As the dance of acceptance between the light and shadow muses unfolds, I get the sense that this marriage of opposites is the path to the most interesting and true art.
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