Memory and Vision: What is Art?
No matter what it is, there is something only you can see; it may be a lonely birch pointing to the sky. It may be a twist of wood that catches your eye and is beautiful to you. You may see a stack of canned goods and see the trace of a remembered curve—or hear the music in a particular string of words. Vision commits a thought to material representation, and that frozen, yet fluid thought remains: a memory to be seen and considered and experienced by others and their children , inspired and inspiring, as long as it exists.
A vision is ephemeral;
art is the attempt to capture it.
Memory puts things in boxes;
Vision strews them about
and picks and chooses to tell its story.
Order travels in straight lines;
art takes circuitous paths.
Order is black and white;
art is living color.
Order is a ticking time bomb;
art stops the clock.
Order is featureless desert;
art is our oasis.
Order is a clacking computer;
art is the reset button.
In a frantic landscape of orderly living,
art is the white space that refreshes the eye.
Vision depends on memory,
and that memory depends on art--
Feeding one another,
nourished by the interaction,
Twined and twisted
Till there is no division,
no beginning, no end,
merged in a circle of renewal.
Life is laid down in black and white,
straight lines and logic,
squared up and saluting,
humming with action.
Art brings us together.
Rooted here, we all can grow.
