Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth — more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid … Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
–Bertrand Russell
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I was looking at the painting above, a newly finished 12″ by 12″ canvas, trying to ascertain what it was saying to me. I was picking up all sorts of symbols from it and was seeing it in from all sorts of perspectives but finally it came clear to me what I was seeing in this piece. It was the freedom to create our own worlds, to define our own way of seeing and experiencing that world. That freedom, that need to create my own world, is what always drew me to creative outlets. It is certainly what drive me in my painting.
I didn’t always like what I saw in the outer world of reality and was usually powerless to change it. But in my thoughts I could create an inner world that had reason and empathy or at least what I saw as reason and empathy. It would be a place where these better thoughts could live and grow without the fear of being crushed by thoughtless others, people shackled to ideologies and beliefs that they accept and follow without questioning. Without thinking.
That’s what these blood-red rows in the fields and the teal mound and the cascading colors in the sky say to me. This is my world and there, these all make perfect sense. It is a place where one is always free to think what they might. I think that’s why I chose the quote above from Bertrand Russell. We all too often choose to not think, to just float along with the prevailing thought of others, never trusting our own thoughts enough to fully live by them. I know I certainly have fallen into that category in the past.
But we all have our own private worlds of wonder inside of us if we dare to simply think.
Redtree Times 