sábado, 14 de novembro de 2009

Dancing fingers, or so pretty it hurts


I love having wicked thoughts. Something crosses your mind and you smile but the smile comes out as a smirk, really, because your funny thought was a bit unorthodox. Love it. Want more of it. Always. And mind you, that's pretty much all I get.
But as I said before, I have to use it with moderation, otherwise, well, I am running my own company, right? And I want to make pieces that are different because we are all different. And I have to understand and accept the fact that many people like things that are beautiful and straightforward.
Talking about the French Impressionists, I will always remember a conversation I had with an ex-student of mine when I took him to the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, America's first Museum of Modern Art. We stopped in front of one painting that had it all: pretty colors, lots of sunshine.... Yuuuk, I cringed and said by way of disapproval: "This is just tooo happy" My friend looked at me in disbelief and said: "Gee, I just can't imagine what kind of a sad childhood you must've had to see things this way!"

Truth to be told, my childhood wasn't full of sunshine (geography to be blamed) but unhappy it wasn't (maybe because when you are too little unhappiness is hard to grasp - later on, however, I did feel its weight) and I had my fair share of art books to keep me company.

And even though I still can't say that I love the unproblematic sunny happiness of many paintings, I can completely understand why they are loved by the majority. They are, indeed, very pleasing to the eye and heart.

At times I simply can't resist some of my wicked thoughts and decide to make a piece, part of my series 'So pretty it hurts'. Act upon my ideas to let the steam off. Reach a compromise: use sweet images but put them in a problematic setting.

Don't worry: no animals or humans were hurt during this artsy test. This ring might be a sore in your eye if you are a purist, but it won't hurt your fingers.


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