My creativity coach suggested I clarify my deepest intention. I did. It's short, but since I'll want to refer to it often, I'm going to write it as a linked article as well as a post here. So I'll add a link to it in the column at the right of the page.
This is my deepest intention. It's three-fold: three aspects of one process.
1) to free the Artist in myself - thus becoming fully alive and present in the world.
2) to add a radiant energy of aliveness to the world by my process of creating art.
3) to embody that energy in physical works of art - bowls and paintings and collages and cartoons.
The third aspect is important because it means that this energy stays available to other people, stays available in the world.
Writing this, I realize that I believe that it's possible to make art that embodies energy that doesn't ever get used up. Nor does the energy get weakened or contaminated or corrupted. The artwork doesn't absorb "ungrounded human emotions" (in "Perelandra" terms.)
Let me explain more what I mean. In her writings, Machaelle Small Wright of the fabulous Perelandra garden research, teaches that nature absorbs "ungrounded human emotions." Sometimes plants and animals even die because they become so weakened by this. (Please realize that this is my interpetation of her writing, and none of this is authorized by her. I'm not directly quoting her here.)
Writing my intention, I realize that I believe that it's possible to make artwork that's powerful enough not to absorb these emotions or to do so without diminishing its power. Picture a person whose in the grip of some truly evil course of thought and action. His life is on a downward spiral. He's in an art museum. On the wall is a painting that radiates a certain indefinable energy. Does the person's energy have the power to negate the energy of the painting? To diminish it? Corrupt it?
It depends on the painting. But it's quite possible that there are paintings that could be totally unaffected by any viewer's energy. Also, of course, there could be sculptures as powerful, or bowls, or weavings. In other words, the energy of the artwork has real power. Wouldn't this power be essentially a religious power, a "binding back to the Source?"
To me, this makes artmaking a most exciting endeavor. Whether one succeeds or fails hardly matters when the project itself is so compelling. To make even a small step in the direction of my intention, seems more significant than anything else I could do. To have a chance to work - what a great thing that is.
10:49:11 PM 
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