Perception is Reality

Joshua Tree California © Rick Chapman 1999.

I would like to quote an author named Robin Williams, (no not that famous actor and comedian, but a woman living in Santa Fe, NM who happens to share the same name).

-- quote --

The Joshua Tree Epiphany
by Robin Williams

Once upon a time, Robin received a tree identifying book where you could match a tree up with its name by looking at its picture. Robin decided to go out and identify the trees in the neighborhood. Before she went out, she read through part of the book.The first tree in the book was the Joshua tree because it only took two clues to identify it.

Now the Joshua tree is a really weird-looking tree and she looked at that picture and said to herself, "Oh, we don’t have that kind of tree in Northern California. That is a weird-looking tree. I would know if I saw that tree, and I’ve never seen one before."

So she took the book and went outside. Her parents lived in a cul-de-sac of six homes. Four of those homes had Joshua trees in the front yard. She had lived in that house for thirteen years, and she had never seen a Joshua tree.

She took a walk around the block - at least 80 percent of the homes had Joshua trees in the front yards. And she had sworn she had never seen one before!

The moral of the story? Once Robin was conscious of the tree, once she could name it, she saw could see it everywhere. Which is exactly my point. Once you can name something, you’re conscious of it. You have power over it. You own it. You’re in control.

-- end quote ---

So, why am I including this quote from graphic design and typography author Robin Williams? Because her little story about suddenly discovering the joshua trees in her neighborhood as a young girl is relevant to anyone learning something new about the world that has already been seen, and lived in, for one's entire life.

All artists have to rediscover what seems like the obvious, and each one of us has our own approach. No one way is THE right way.

-e

Suspended Animation

The Fall, Claire Burbridge © 2005 (date?)

Ok, so the ice has broken and I am finally back to blogging again. When I last posted I was living in Raleigh, North Carolina and only a few days away from driving cross country in a whirl wind single weekend of change in both work and living environs. Now, I'm living and working in Tucson, Arizona. In all the furious effort involved in jumping into my current role here in Arizona I allowed this blog to simply languish.

Strange thing is my readership and blog traffic appears to have grown nearly five-fold since August 2007 and now. All I can say is wow! Between Kate, Sean, and some very insistent curiosity originating somewhere in Portland, Oregon I have been shamed out of my intransigence and am now back to typing about my thoughts, observations, the work of others, and the occasional example or two of my own work. I have plans to start showcasing some student here work as well. Good stuff so, stay tuned.

For now I present the work of the British born artist Claire Burbridge who creates in South London where she lives and with her husband and their son. I don't know Burbridge personally but found her sculptures intriguing. I discovered them by google-ing the words that make the title of this post. I back tracked to her portfolio website and found her bio interesting and appropriate in parts to the subject of animation. My original online query lead me to the image below which is of her work Suspended Animation, currently represented at Davis & Cline Gallery located in Ashland, Oregon. hummm... Oregon.













Suspended Animation, Claire Burbridge © 2001 A nice run cycle cast into sculpture.

I thought it was starting to make a nice circle, or maybe a spiral, posting art work found in the same state where so much recent interest in this blog has blossomed. This circle also includes google which is largely responsible for so much increased traffic at this blog.

Lesson: if you blog and want some traffic, or maybe a lot, post on a variety of subjects and then link like crazy to related sources on your topics. It works really well! Just look at my ClustrMaps on the right.

Ok, for whoever cares, I'm back at it. More to come soon. No more ridiculously long lapses. Oh, and thank you everyone who has stopped by repeatedly over the past six months.

-e