IT IS ART

If I think about what art means to me, what comes to mind is that it is a vision. That is what has always struck me when I have encountered what I now think of as art; something that appears to be a vision. The size and medium are of little consequence; it is the experience of this vision that moves me.

I would also have to say that light plays a role in this experience, but it is predominantly an inner light, something which radiates, shines through the work.


When I was very young and came across a vision, I just knew that I had had an experience, and didn't think of it as art. One of my first experiences of this sort was The Winged Victory of Samothrace in the Louvre at the age of seven.

This is not an uncommon response to one of the most commanding and inspiring sculptures in the world. Nonetheless I too was floored by it.

Later I came to recognize when something like this happened, and I felt excited by it, like a rush of adrenaline, like being shot out of a cannon, it came to mean something to me, and that something took the name "Art." Even as a very young artist this experience of a vision was what I was looking for, instead of a signature, a style, a brand, or a fashionable, cutting edge, trendsetting invention I could call my own. Something with light, with radiance, with power.

This vision I am talking about is an individual and unique experience, not some broad big picture kind of vision, like the way people talk about someone with a "vision." No, I am talking about an isolated experience that is almost always unexpected, that we happen upon or happens to us.

We scour galleries and museums in hopes of finding or having this experience the way we might go to a casino to hit the jackpot or go to a bar or club hoping to fall in love. For lack of a better description, a better word, this vision experience is what I think of as an aesthetic experience.

This sense of vision has always guided me. It is absolutely my very personal journey; it is absolutely subjective. It is not intellectual. It is not the result of contemplation or analysis or systematic observation or judgment. It is something transcendent. It is art.


Addison Parks
Spring Hill


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone