the strangeness in everything
We spend most of our days unaware and unnoticing.
It happens slowly. Secretly.
In the rhythmic hush of our daily motions. In one foot placed after the other. From one day to another. No one the wiser. The world at our finger tips. Everything within an arm's reach. And yet, there is a distance that grows incrementally.
We give in to the slow-honeyed seduction of certainty. The viscous comfort of what we think we know, but have never truly seen.
"Familiarity", John O'Donohue says, "is one of the most subtle and pervasive forms of human alienation."
Art has a way of showing us things that we've never paid attention to. The things we don't look at closely. The things we’ve chosen not to. The things we've hidden from and the things in hiding. The gaps. The asymmetry. The incongruities. The beautiful strangeness that sleeps inside everything.
Art, done properly, confronts us with truths, even and perhaps especially when those truths are uncomfortable to be close to.
P.S. ICAD Day 76-79
P.P.S. Here’s a few more square pieces I’ve finished in preparation for submission to the Perfectly Square Exhibition put on by Five Deuces Galleria in St. Petersburg, Florida.
'Art has a way of showing us things that we've never paid attention to. The things we don't look at closely. The things we’ve chosen not to. The things we've hidden from and the things in hiding. The gaps'
Thought provoking, beautifully written post, Duane.
How crazy, I just wrote a post with a similar message to this one! "Art is an unveiling, a therapeutic expedition." Again, your collages are lovely. I like the color schemes. It would be fun to collaborate on a collage.