Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
*************************
This another new painting, a 16″ by 20″ canvas titled Expansion, that is part of my show, Into the Common Ground, that opens tomorrow in Erie, PA at the Kada Gallery.
For me, this is a painting whose theme is centered on the expansion of one’s mind and vision, about moving to a higher plateau of feeling and taking a wider view of the world. This involves leaving the mind open to new ideas with the hope that these new ideas bring some form of enlightenment and that the negatives– hatred, greed, anger and envy just to name a few–that we have held on to for so long will be replaced by more positive qualities–love, generosity and kindness.
I see this expansion in the way the Red Tree seems to be facing the far horizon with arms open, unashamed and willing to submit itself to change. It stands among the alternating rows of the field which represent in this piece being trapped in the entrenched patterns of habit. By that, I mean we all too often live without thought, going with the prevailing movement of the crowd and never taking the time to stop and consider why and what we are doing. We accept things as they are without trying to contemplate the possibility of things being somehow different, never consider opening ourselves to a different way of seeing the world.
A different way of simply being.
And I see this possibility, this expansiveness, in this simply composed piece. It is a feeling that is calm and kind and embracing– ideas that we all will hopefully allow to stretch our own minds.
Redtree Times 