Chapter three: Themes of Art

 What stood out for me in this chapter was the themes of nature and art, and the invention and fantasy section.
For Nature and Art and it's relationship to people, I picked up on the first sentence: "As humans we make our own environment.  And that is what I see Thomas Cole doing with: 'The Oxbow'

and Robert Smithson does with: "Spiral Jetty

.

I see that they both want to create something that they can somehow be a part of the creation, and I think the way Cole puts himself and the viewer into the art work is pretty cool:  He puts us in the same spot he painted the painting watching him paint it...

And Smithson gives us spiral jetty using the earth to create the art, and then walking out on his art work to watch it change and shift colors like a living thing that he created.  The differences are the material, and that Smithson has created the object entirely out of his imagination, while Cole both recorded something while creating something too.  Obviously there wasn't a storm that close at hand while he painted, and I assume he chose to add that part to say something about nature and possibly make an observation about humans as well.   

I wonder if the dark and the light, fury and the calm, the broken (tree) and the organized clean put- together crop fields all say something about the two sides of humans that emulates nature...the circle of life with the loop and how good and bad, sunshine and rain, ugly and beauty go hand in hand....

We have to respect the power of nature and the drive that makes us humans jump in and take on the rough stuff to put our smooth touches into the experience...embedding ourselfs, imprinting ourselves into nature.  We record it, but we also do try and make it our own, is what Cole might be saying...

The Spiral Jetty is a simple design on the surface, but on closer inspection, it is much more complex and ever changing like ourselves....we, like the spiral, enter into and grow / go deeper and further out as we travel and walk our walk.  We have a start, a long  journey which circles around to an end that is much like our starting. 

I would love to build sand castles and them walk into or onto them if I could...Smithson could do that with his creation, and I think that is really awesome.  He created the something that then begins to change and entertain him back, creating joy and awe...how cool is that!

And I would love to be a part of the nature environment I love the most, and Cole did that for himself and us the viewers...he shared the experience with us by inviting us in with him...I think it is ingeitalityniuous, and that is one of the things about art that I love the most...the unique and creative brilliance and aha moments that make art so much more enjoyable.  

What all this is doing to me is hard to explain, but by observing and sharing that observation and then adding a little of themselves... little more spark of the imagination...these artists are inspiring me to want to do the very same thing for others and share with them the beauty that surrounds me, and that is also within.

Okay...now onto more imaginative observations such as: Sandy Skoglunds "Radioactive Cats"

and Henri Rousseau's "The Dream"...

both fiction and fact in the sense that fiction is there..the imagination..but also the fact that desire and hunger are there which is their truth.  Both have woman and animals, both have the weird and the wild, both have the mystery and the alarming and both have the calm as well.   The differences are the color, variety and vitality....R. Cats speaks "The unfullfilled are going to feed the hungry 'It' .....and The Dream says"The hungry and going to get fulfilled by 'It'.   I wonder if Skoglund is telling us we are becoming desensitized and numb and old and dull to what should alarm us...I wonder if Rousseau is telling us: Hey, follow me into the wild unknown which is sexy and untamed, so stay alert, there is so much to see"!

I am only speculating as to what hits me about these, but I love their imagination and hard work they put into their art, each different yet speak about something that is the same: mystery.  All art is mysterious and I love this adventure.  My hope is that all people get the opportunity to enjoy and be made to think about what art might be saying and sharing with the world.  So far, this semester has been a thrill for me, and I wish this fun on all humans everywhere.