the muse
bluecanvas1/2008
In art as in love, instinct is enough.
-Anatole France
The muse position isn’t one you can apply or interview for. As an artist I’ve never sought out a muse, they have just presented themselves. They have been people and places. For years San Francisco was my muse. I wrote two screenplays listening to Justin Timberlake. I’ve been a muse to a sculptor of little fame and a painter of some notoriety. It is an intimate agreement- even if you never meet. My muses are a gateway to the divine and the more mature I get the more I realize that all expression is an opportunity to experience the divine right here in this human form.
The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.
Michelangelo
In cooking, painting, making love, nurturing a loved one, writing, listening to music, exercising my body and mind or connecting with all forms of nature there is a choice to make. Is this a higher octave or a lower one? The chance to experience the sacred is available at every moment. I always suspected this, but my early education and experience seemed to contradict this notion for the most part. Now I know better. Now I can choose each moment.
I don't paint things.
I only paint the difference
between things.
Henri Matisse
You are my new muse. To call it a job is to reduce its value and contribution. It’s more chemistry than biology. It’s unpredictable and intense and precious. It brings risk to the equation. It calls for a way of being that has little use for a victim or a whore. A new tier has been revealed. Where I was stopped, I am now soaring. Where I was intimidated, I now have courage. Where I forgot, now
I remember.
-from a letter to the muse
January 2008