A Journal entry

Most of what passes for important art is meant to shock and provoke, to push boundaries and challenge norms. Which is fine. Boundaries always need to be pushed and norms challenged although far too much of this kind of art fails to do either. A lot of this work is politically oriented and most of that does little more than mirror the chaotic political changes occurring with or without such art.

I was never much interested in shock and provocation, even as a young man. The profound and the sublime always seemed more meaningful to me. I've never imagined that I succeed in capturing or conveying this other ineffable calling of art. Sometimes an artist like Van Gogh managed to do both. Of course now his work is so mainstreamed into commercial consumption that the rebelliousness of it is mostly a historical note. Its sublimity remains for anyone who makes the effort to look.

I'm not trying to change the world. It needs changing. Always. But my art is my voice and I was never one to shout from the rooftops in protest, no matter how angry I felt. Others were always louder and angrier. I only wanted to find a way to show others the things that moved me but seemed inexpressible in words.

I only ever wanted to express myself, like Horton's Who yopping to the world so it would know I was here, to express something of myself, to say "This is how the world makes me feel: awed, sad, delighted, lonely, giddy, solemn, bewitched." My only goal is having someone else connects to a single piece of my art with some fraction of this same complex experience.

Light - oil on paper - 12" x 16"