A Purple Thing

I guess I'm into a purple thing now, everything's comin' up purple! Actually, it's that PolaDroid application that contributes much of the purple cast to a lot of my photos. And if it's not purple, then it's some other old timey aura. I love that app! Check it out here if you're interested.

So this quilt, another 12x12" that will be mounted on a frame, is called Heaven's Gate. Just another one of innumerable old stone stairways at Varenna on Lake Como. Absolutely heavenly!

I'm in a pensive mood tonight, have been thinking about a variety of art and creativity related matters of late...maybe this is a good time to verbalize some of my ruminating...

I've been looking at how I see things, rather intensely lately. Like how my brain processes the input through my eyes -- the individual things themselves, the patterns they create together, shadows, line and shape, depth, areas of color -- the gestalt of a particular view out into the world. I'm not looking at details much these days.

I've been wondering whether each of us has our own way of visually seeing the world, or whether there are certain ways of seeing. Does everybody really see everything differently, or are there categories of perceiving -- like being a big thinker, or a detail person. And how much does our individual emotional complexity influence how and what we see. And perhaps why we see what we see or don't see.

I've been wondering about why this is important to me at all. But I think the internal discussion I'm having might be about giving myself permission to do my own work, for lack of a better way of saying it. Or, validating myself, my process, my own take on things, my artistic vision, what drives my choices in the work I create.

I've always been a contrarian, which generally refers to a person with a preference for taking a position opposed to that of the majority view prevalent in the group of which they are a part. But for me it's been more like, whatever works for other people almost never works for me. And I've pretty much spent my life trying not to be a contrarian, to fit in, when I never have, when I haven't really been able to be any other way than I am.

Goes back to permission. I think perhaps I'm beginning to own myself, or I'm becoming more myself than I've ever been before -- allowing myself to create what I create, to think and see the way I do, without really giving a hoot what anybody else thinks. To put myself out there without being defensive, without qualification or justification, just because it feels authentic to me, and without worrying about whether I or my work meet specifications or expectations (when in fact I secretly hope I don't but I'm not quite comfortable acknowledging that yet).

In a nutshell -- I want to be different (from anybody else), but I'm afraid you (the world) won't like me if I am. And yet I sense that the world is just waiting for me to step off the cliff and learn to fly! So who's standing in my way?

I think I'll save other deep thoughts for another time.