For I do not exist: there exist but the thousands of mirrors that reflect me. With every acquaintance I make, the population of phantoms resembling me increases. Somewhere they live, somewhere they multiply. I alone do not exist.
― Vladimir Nabokov, The Eye (1930)
I am still well under the weather though it feels like I am making progress. But still enough that it was hard to focus this morning in writing this blogpost. I spent about an hour and a half just fiddling around with nothing to show but an even more throbbing head. At least it’s not Keith Moon banging on skull this morning. More like a bodhran, the Irish hand drum.
As the time ticked away, I decided that I would share a post from the past about one of the pieces that is included in A Seedling Returns at the Gmeiner Art & Cultural Center in beautiful Wellsboro, PA which opens this coming Saturday, July 18. The official Opening Reception takes place next Saturday, July 25, running from 2-4 PM.
If you would like more info on how this show came about, I wrote about the influence of the Gmeiner on my career in a post a few weeks ago, A Seedling Returns.
A Seedling Returns is a small, featured exhibit of my work in conjunction with the larger Big Gems exhibit, which is a collaboration between the Gmeiner and the West End Gallery. It features large paintings from 10 of the West End Gallery artists along with a selection of smaller Little Gems.
The painting shown here, Mirror and Windows, painted in 2013, is a longtime favorite of mine. Below is a post from a number of years back about this painting and what I see in it.
The painting shown here, Mirrors and Windows, hangs here in the studio and I pass it several times a day–it’s fortuitously hung on the wall outside the bathroom. But even though it’s been in this spot for several years now, it usually draws my attention. It’s been that way, remaining a favorite of mine since it was painted back in 2013.
As I wrote back in 2013:
I found myself looking at this piece quite often in the studio, trying to ascertain what it was that was pulling me in. As I looked, I began to be more aware of the road running through which signified to me our life’s journey. We spend our lives looking in mirrors and out windows, living in reflections and images of ourselves and the outer world.
There must be some perfect balance in this. Somewhere, somehow, we hopefully reach a point where we know who and what we are and turn away from mirrors and begin to look for windows in which we can expand our vision of the outer world and gain greater wisdom.
Years later and it has carried the meaning well that I gleaned from it back then, which is that real art serves as both a window and a mirror, giving the viewer insights and views into the world and reflecting their place within it.
Just this morning, I stood in front of it and wondered if I was looking at it as a mirror or a window.
I came to the conclusion that it might be both.
Here’s a fitting tune from the Velvet Underground. This is I’ll Be Your Mirror, performed in 1972 by Lou Reed, John Cale and Nico.