Tag Archives: intellect

Sometimes I wonder if I am quite mad

#Letter365 No72 gets posted in bright sunshine
a bright sunny posting for No72

What on earth is it in me and many other people who find joy and beauty in the most unexpected places. There is a group of us on Twitter that share picture of rusty, peeling, rotten things. Some of us tweet pictures of roads, tyremarks, paving stones and chewing gum spots. Part of the task of a visual artist is to look and see and notice on behalf of the rest of the people and make choices which things to say “hey, look at this” about. Yet sometimes I wonder if we are all just a bit demented to be so inordinately excited, awed and moved by the abstract patterns and colours of Nature’s decomposing? Which brings me to today’s #Letter365 piece. When I look at the photos I took of today’s piece I find it incredibly moving. It only took me a short while to make it and something comes up in me about its value and worth because of that. The components and idea had been sitting with me for a few days so with that time included the time it took might be trebled, but it’s still not much. Not like someone Tweeted recently, “you can’t create a piece of art in a day”. Does that mean this piece is not art? What about if I factor in 5 years at art school, years of personal study, a lifetime of considered looking, years of art practice, years of working in design, advertising and graphics? It could be said that this piece took over 60 years to make. Does that make it any the more art? Could it be that it is possible for an artwork, something that moves the guts and stirs the intellect, to be created in an instant and. On the other hand it could be that I’m delusional.