What Marchutz means to me...

Most of the blog thus far has been about sights, experiences, and laughs. It is hard for me to express in words the changes that have occurred in my heart, soul, and paintings… and that is the beauty of it. It is beyond words. So I would like to share with you something I wrote in my personal journal on the last day of class (only under the circumstances that you don’t make fun of me). You should know that before studying at Marchutz, my art was not personal, it was becoming forced, and the artist inside me was tired. I apologize in advance because this is a bit long, but it’s the only way I know how to share with you what Marchutz has done in my life. Read on if you wish.

22 July 2010

“Lend me your eyes, I can change what you see. But your soul you must keep totally free.” These lyrics from a song called Awake My Soul made me think about what exactly has happened to me here at Marchutz this summer. Do not be afraid to lend your eyes to someone or something, you may find yourself with an awakened soul:

As I was walking home from our last seminar, seeing, smelling, and feeling the life and spirit of Aix, my mind was spinning with everything we discussed. However, my thoughts were broken with emotions that I could not and cannot comprehend. It was a sort of deep sensation in my gut that was telling me that I am part of something huge and timeless. My head was filled with ideas, history, art, and how that all relates to tradition. But my heart was overflowing with love, colors, passion, and humbleness/respect for this enormous world of art that I have only just stepped into. Feeling overwhelmed and in awe of the tasks that lay before me, I found comfort in a passage from the text by T.S. Eliot that Alan read aloud in class. Maybe it was his soothing voice, the smell of the studio, or the faces of 6 incredible people looking back at me, but that passage really hit me… hard.

“No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone… You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead… what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values, of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and new… the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past.”

In the same way that I once misquoted Leo Marchutz… whoa! While struggling to fully understand this, I cannot ignore the image created of art in its entirety as a single work of art. Lets just go ahead and assume that this single work of art is a painting… it would eternally bear a sign that said “caution wet paint”. It always has been and will always be in progress. Each work of art that is created is another stroke of paint on the canvas of this rich history. It is not isolated in its time or separated by its style. It more than interacts with the already painted strokes; it alters them. You may ask yourself how adding a mark can possibly change the existing ones… to that I say that those previous strokes exist, yet cannot achieve their full potential without the relationships that form upon their interaction with even the newest additions.

Alan and John perpetually stress the idea of working the canvas as a whole and bringing the painting up as a whole with each stroke intentional in describing its relationship to the others. The image by Eliot has allowed me to see that the same concept applies to so many things: an individual painting, a body of work, art as a whole, and even life itself.

The Marchutz School has opened my eyes to the immensity and vastness of art, all while making it tangible and personal. John and Alan have not only taught me the importance of each and every stroke on the canvas of my paintings, but have guided my heart and soul to see the world as a whole, and place my mark with purpose exactly where it belongs on the canvas of the world… wherever that may be.

I cannot help but picture life as a painting. Each one of us has our stroke of paint to place. We do not always know where to place it, what color to make it, or how it could possibly make a difference. But if this summer has taught me nothing else, it is that the mark itself is not the essential part; it is its relationship among the strokes that makes it a necessary part of the whole.

The bottom line is, whatever it is that you do and love… leave your mark and make it count. While each individual stroke may seem small and insignificant, it is forever bound by the power of its relationships with others. Dedicate yourself to something and find just the right value, just the right hue, and just the right placement. Leave your mark on the canvas of life and know that it (in combination with those that have come before you and those yet to come) will make something beautiful. In that I find comfort.