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The Muse's Storage Box

The Muse's Storage Box
Copyright Diane Lou.

Alchemical Dreams and Disparate Realities

Rust and bones, broken toys and old text, game boards, gears and nests. Even as a child such odd, unwanted items evoked a pit-of-the-stomach response that bordered on exhilaration.
While I make no attempt to conjure up specific feelings in the viewer, the ambiguous juxtapositioning of familiar materials creates art that evokes half-forgotten, dream-like visions that beg to be interpreted by the viewer. There is a sense of deja vu (the already seen) tempered by a sense of jamais vu ( the never seen, or the illusion that the familiar does not seem familiar), and this contradiction asks the viewer to dig deeply, to look inside her own repository of wisdom, intuition and experience to find her own meaning in the familiar objects she sees.
The once-private discards of people's material lives that I collect for my art seem to carry universal memories with them, memories that can engage and mystify the viewer. Their beauty lies within the rust, the erosion, the wear, and the mere fact that they were once possessions.
I play with abandon and with no forethought. Each piece of detritus seems to suggest to me a relationship with some other piece, and I begin to put them together and wait for the mental "buzz" that lets me know I am proceeding as I should. Even at this point, I continue to remain in the play state and will not allow myself to direct the outcome of the piece, a process that requires complete trust. The outcome often mystifies me as much as it might any viewer.
Remember when, as a child, whatever was in reach became the instrument of your creative exploration? That is my life. A rusty, flattened piece of metal on the street, a gnawed bone by the roadside, a unique twisted branch from a tree, a fallen nest, a broken egg, a snake's skin, a dead butterfly...all will be added to my collection and eventually have their beauty honored in one of my pieces. The resulting art creates a new story with its own imagined history, one that invites the viewers to lay some claim on it by allowing themselves to be enveloped by the sight, the history, and the ambiguity of the realities before them.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Fall and Flickr

 
 
Perfection...the fall we are being gifted with this year.  Day after day of sunny, clear, cool days with crisp, chilly nights. I'm delighting in  each one, wringing each moment dry.  In a few days, I'll be under the knife, and then, for a bit of time, I won't be running up and down the hill to check on the garden or to play in the studio.

Thankfully my dear friend Jan who helped me get through recovery (via email) from the last surgery (as she was recovering from her own) has helped me once again by introducing me to Flickr.
Yes, I'd gone there to view Jan's art but hadn't really considered becoming involved or posting my art until she nudged a little.
  
If you think Facebook is a time passer (think black hole), try Flickr.  There are hundreds of thousands if not millions (my guess) of pieces of art to look at and to leave comments on. Some
are mediocre, some excellent.  There are friends and contacts to make and to email. With it being an international art community,  I am now in contact with people from France, Germany, England and Nova Scotia as well as Portland...and that's in just two days!

Truly, what a gift right now.  Even while I am spending those days in the hospital, I can use my laptop and distract myself from tubes and discomfort and enter into a never-ending, ever-changing world of art!  Thanks, my dear friend.

P.S. My Flickr name is assemblageartist (can't believe no one had it). Jan's is akaLunaMoonbeam 


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