As I sifted through the numerous stories submitted to us in the past several weeks, one stood out from the rest. Yes, all were interesting, some funny, some straight to the point but one made me feel different as I read it. One felt as if it was written from the soul.
Every artist story is different. Unlike other professions, art is something profound that cannot be accomplished simply by going to a expensive art school and then being ready to be on your way.
An artist named Denise Williams explored this in the reflection of her personal journey as an artist. This is her story.
As many artists do, she did not begin in the big city. Denise Williams was born in the heartland of America in a town in Kansas. Her first brush with art was a cardboard print of the work of art considered to be Da Vinci’s finest, the Mona Lisa. After seeing it in her local grocer, she saved her money and bought it. Much like Da Vinci himself, her personal cardboard Mona Lisa became her most prized possession.
At that same age, with the support and guidance of her mother and grandparents she began to learn the craft of art. In her younger years she was able to hone her talent in several mediums of art but still was unclear as to what she was really accomplishing. Yes, it was a creation of her own but what it actually was, what art really was, was still a mystery to her.
This is a problem that many artists face at some point in their careers. Defining ones craft is not as easy. Sometimes though, finding what defines one's art can come from the most unlikely places.
Later on in 1988, during a visit to Santa Fe, Denise met an Artist named Phyllis Kapp at her studio. From Phyllis, she learned that art was an extension of one’s soul. She understood this when she saw this artist standing next to her work that was an original creation, something that came from within her and having herself reflected in her art.
When Denise saw this, she silently spoke to herself, promising that she would move to Santa Fe and pursue art in her life.
Two weeks later she had moved to Santa Fe.
She knew that art came from the soul. She had learned to master her art form mathematically, knowing the techniques and skills that had been taught to her since she was four. But still her art was not what it should be. It wasn’t until her own son was four that she was able to learn what she was missing in her art.
When her and her son, Jimmy Ticer, were making masks she began to notice, when comparing her masks to his, that there was something in his that she lacked. At the tender age of four her son had achieved sophistication that was beyond her well-trained hands.
When people would come over she would be astonished that her guests would confuse their art, thinking his was her and vice-versa.
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For weeks Denise marveled over her son’s work pondering the complexity she lacked in her own. Finally in a desperate slump, while working with her son on painting, she broke down, falling against her cabinets in tears.
Her son looked over at her, seeing his mother crying, and stopped what he was doing. In his innocence he knelt next to his mother and asked what any four year old would ask. He asked his mother why she was crying.
Denise did something very uncharacteristic as a parent and an adult. She was honest with her son. She told him of how she admired and loved his art so much and her desperation to solve what was wrong with her own.
Her son was only four. He had no schooling yet. He was without the knowledge of age. Even still he pondered her dilemma. With out a word he turned and got back up on his stool. Then he told her to come next to him.
What he said to her was profound. He knew no mathematics, no geometry, or space and yet he knew what she was missing.
Denise said it best in her own words. “He then took my hands in his so small and told me what I was doing wrong, as he began to paint with me, was that I was trying to control the paint, that I merely had to become one with the paint for it has a life of it’s own.”
Her son was only four, the age Denise was when she first discovered art and even still he understood the most important aspect of art. He not only knew that art was supposed to come from the soul but he knew that art must be an "extension of one's soul." He was able to show his mother the one key ingredient in what her art was missing.
Now, every time she paints, she becomes one with her work just as her son had enlightened her to do. Instead of a painting a picture she is making her creation part of herself. Her hands move in melody with the canvas just as if her son’s small hands were moving over her's every time.
Denise knew the rules, the mechanics, the structure that was taught to her throughout her life but it was not until her son took her hands in his own and taught his mother to paint with her soul and become one with the painting that she began to truly create art.
Every artist, including myself has struggled in their life to understand what art is and how to make art his or her own. Denise Williams, through her son, learned that Art is not something that can be just be taught. A person can go to school for it and learn the mechanics that make up the structure of the piece but without its soul an art piece is not yet art. Art is defined from within the Artist’s soul. It is a creation that comes from within the artist that makes the Art beautiful for the world not only to see but to feel. |
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