Art

"When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college - that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, 'you mean they forget?'" - Howard Ikemoto

granddaughter, Sandra's painting, age 4

Coulrophobia*

I don't remember why I chose to draw a clown.
Probably because I don't know how to draw mouths
and make-up covers up a lot
for clowns and others.
 I have no fear of clowns,
only the fear of being left at home
while everyone else goes to the circus.

pastel by Kathryn Schoenhals (Feigal), 1964,

clown copied from 'Painting Faces' art book

*Coulrophobia, the fear of clowns

Pencil Sketches

David


"I sung that song with all my soul
and everybody were emotionated"
Enrico Caruso

"The goal of life is rapture. Art is how we experience it." - Joseph Campbell

Out of the void came two particles. They bumped into each other and created an electrical impulse. The proton particle wanted to know what the fundamental element of his make-up was. He wanted a unified description of gravity, space, time, truth, beauty and superstrings. The antiproton particle just wanted to keep bumping into the proton. She saw the collision as wonderfully resonant vibrating music. She knew what the fundamental element of her make-up was. It was passion: the infinite joy of endless giving and receiving. He was confused by quarks, leptons and the unpredictable nature of how particles interact.

And out of the void came a voice. And the voice said, "What you are experiencing is a performance by Mantovannis' Superstrings. Don't try to analyze it or you may scratch the record. You may even stop life itself. Just let it play out. The more you experience the performance, the more you will 'become' the performance. It is a cycle: foreplay, arousal, climax and afterglow. Some people call this 'sonata form.' The music alternates between dissonance and consonance. The feeling of neutralness, of being neither attracted nor repelled appears and disappears. Back and forth. Together and apart. Up and down. In and out. It is like the breath which never ends as long as you are alive. It is like the bow against the string, the mouth on the reed, the finger on the key.

Live with a passion for these connections and contradictions. Embrace the contrapuntal and fugue-like details. Don't perform out of guilt or obligation, but be aware of the dangers associated with creating a fully realized musical experience. If you choose to share all that is in you, there may be performance anxiety. If you don't take the risk, you will experience despair. Say 'yes' to what expresses your passion. Consciously decide to celebrate your perplexity. However conflicted, make the music happen. It takes courage to be an artist. Choose the enchantment of uncertainty. Nothing is exciting if you know what the outcome is going to be. Part of being an artist is being willing to be surprised, shocked, disappointed. Yet there is delight in all of these things. You can even transform pain into bliss. You always have a choice. You can choose to deaden yourself to all the possibilities of the present moment or you can perpetually choose to fashion something out of the collision of particles, drop it back into the cosmic void and call it art."
Kathryn Feigal©1997