Some time ago I saw a retrospective of Matisse's work at
MOMA. I remember being particularly taken with his paper cutouts... he made them with colored or painted paper and big scissors late in his life. The shapes were simple and elegant and beautiful.
Here and there in my own work, I look for such simplicity and beauty. Lying in bed before sleep I tell myself to hunt for these things in dreams. But for me they always seem to be fully rooted in the physical world: a fragment of shell on the beach, a section of large intestine, a piece of shadow under my table.
I think I am not working much at getting at my inner world these days, not working hard enough at all. And I well know that I get out of it only as much as I put in.
And they live happily ever after.
When in doubt, choose the drawing with the most extreme dimensions. Today I've been drawing two of everything, couples I guess you'd say. Two leaves, two sticks, two straws, two paws... still sizing up everything in terms of animation.
I've been mulling story ideas for an animation, again. Traveling makes for simple landscape/ character interaction over time... here I'm endowing my critters with grief and loss as they seem to have to move on leaving someone behind.
Some time ago I saw a retrospective of Matisse's work at MOMA. I remember being particularly taken with his paper cutouts... he made them with colored or painted paper and big scissors late in his life. The shapes were simple and elegant and beautiful.
Today I was laying bricks in the backyard... such a repetitive, almost ritual quality to the process. One after the other, atop and alongside. Reminds me how everything fits together. Even when I'm pretty sure they don't.
Simplicity, spontaneity, humor; counterbalancing the clutter of my current inner landscape. It's like an overstuffed closet in here... someone please open a window.
