The Artist as Thunderstorm

"In this picture the artist is saying,
'Elephants are grey because they love thunderstorms,'
Here the artist, in painting a storm,
Has, in fact,
Painted an elephant.
It is well known by some,
And thought well of by others,
That the artist may have gone to a circus,
Perhaps in this lifetime, or that
Of an elephant,
And was impressed,
As we can see by the numerous trunks,
In this painting,
Of trees, grey,
Like a storm,
The artist's inner elephant, as it were,
As it searches among its kind for these green leaves
Which elephants also love, and eat.
Is this why the leaves are green
And juxtaposed so closely to the trunks?
Perhaps the artist thinks so...
And so also sees the world
In that moment,
As an elephant wood.
"In this painting the artist is saying
Something.
"In this painting the artist is saying,
'I want an image to be so fresh it is like a fresh fish,
I want a fish to taste so fresh that it tastes as though it hasn't even been born yet
In fact, a fish would taste better if I didn't eat it,
At all,
That way its freshness...
Could be guaranteed,'
This is what the artist, no longer an elephant, but a bowl of fresh, unborn fish, is saying,
To us, that is,
The artist is saying through a bowl of caviar.
"In this picture the artist is.
"In this picture the artist is taking the convention of paint
And by using it, is painting.
In this picture
The artist is
Using
The diagonal line
To draw the viewer into
The drawing
Of this line,
Which leads us
Into the background
Of the other
Drawings which
The artist has drawn,
Which we will draw on
In another lecture...
"In this drawing the artist has drawn us
Diagonally
Into the background where, through the use of
Perspective,
The viewer stands, almost
In the same position as the artist might stand relative to an easel
When painting, and yet...
This is a drawing
On the skyline of which,
Diagonally from us (the viewer),
From the perspective of the artist,
An elephant is forming,
So that we can almost hear its thunder
As it charges,
Past where we had been standing
As though we were a tree
When the artist drew us in,
Depicted in grey, like the sides of a fish without leaves
Which has never been born
At the circus,
At least, we think,
Not
In the artist's lifetime,
Or perhaps an elephant's.
Thus, the artist has created something so fresh
We can almost taste it,
So powerful we can almost smell it, hear it.
So deep and inviting
That we are standing there with the artist
In the work itself...
And can almost feel the rain
Falling through the green leaves of the trees,
Which is one of the reasons,
Many of which we are fortunate
On which to be able to draw,
That the pictures
The artist has painted
Or drawn
Are still fresh to this day.
The test is next Wednesday."


--J. Shidler 2012-07-25 to 28