My own life has stilled somewhat in a magical way. I have been drawing still life objects, taking them one by one, getting ready to revive an idea that I first began many, many years ago. And it strikes me that still life is a good metaphor for art, is also a form of pure painting, for one chooses and arranges things, solely for their appearances and their meanings. One doesn't necessarily grasp at first what the meanings of the things are -- meaning sneaks in unrecognized, hidden inside appearance. Sometimes after long years one begins to understand why the objects were chosen.
Then too the organization of the objects in the still life matters. It also adds much to what the things mean, and this "organization" is similarly encrypted.
From these things comes beauties, fragments, spaces between spaces (filled with mysteries), distortions, pure shapes, colors that are like deep, concise thougths. Perchance the painting will seem to capture light and air, will have stilled time, caused a mood to arise, memories to gather -- not the artists' memories only, but those of so many unknown and unknowable others. And if these things succeed the painting will have connected one to oneself and made us feel alive.
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