Surviving Art @ the cell
Surviving Art Press
"I can't be a visionary with dirty glasses.”
Lila Smalls
Our ghost is back! We thought she was gone, but Lila is poking around the cell again. We found her glasses lying around, encrusted with layers of time. She begs to return to the clear vision of a lost era, when art was pure and commerce had not yet corrupted the souls of its inspired agents.
Poor Lila! Her restless spirit is egging me on to continue the dream of a salon revival. Maybe I’m in some kind of time warp, wishing to be a part of something that has gone the way of books and records; those lovable yet imperfect relics, merely rich with dimension. Perhaps I myself am a relic, longing to feel the texture of ideas with my senses, much like the feeling I get when I hold my daughter’s newborn baby, Violet. Art, like life itself, is something mysterious and wonderful.
Why a salon?
‘Salon-goers… a group of people linked not by wealth or ancestry but by ideas.”
http://www.leisuregallery.ca/leisure_letters/lesiure-galleries-art-and-the-salon
Where do ideas start? I would venture to say an idea begins as a stirring in the heart, migrates to the brain and ultimately insinuates itself into physical existence, sometimes as art. Perhaps there was a time when an individual could simply put forth his or her creations in the name of self-expression. Perhaps the time has come for us to question how wealth and nepotism have corrupted our simple need to communicate from the heart. These days it seems as if an artist must have a creation, a social network, and even a famous relative in order to launch art into the public eye. It is no longer enough to be an artist. An artist must also be a celebrity. How sad!
The miracle of creation, whether human or something other, is what we believe in. We also believe in ghosts. Thank you, Lila, for keeping our dream alive.