[Stephen Gerringer]

Jennifer,

Thank you again for your generosity of spirit and time. We haven’t had a lot of responses so far; I fear the immediacy of Facebook and its dopamine feedback loop make it difficult for those plugged-in to social media to make the effort to visit a discussion board, log in, write thoughts out long form rather than in meme, and await a reply (you may already have deduced conversations unfold at a much more leisurely pace here – sometimes it takes a day or two or more for one’s thoughts to simmer and percolate to the surface).

But quantity is no substitute for the thoughtful self-reflection of your posts.

You write

Sometimes it isn’t to show something that hasn’t been seen before, but also to show something that may have been seen but ignored or overlooked. “SEE?”

So maybe artists are not just seeing, but are those who have found a way to show?”

. . . which brings to mind the following passage from the opening paragraphs of Campbell’s Creative Mythology (The Masks of God, Volume IV)

In the context of a traditional mythology, the symbols are presented in socially maintained rites, through which the individual is required to experience, or will pretend to have experienced, certain insights, sentiments, and commitments. In what I am calling “creative” mythology, on the other hand, this order is reversed: the individual has had an experience of his own — of order, horror, beauty, or even mere exhilaration — which he seeks to communicate through signs; and if his realization has been of a certain depth and import, his communication will have the value and force of living myth — for those, that is to say, who receive and respond to it of themselves, with recognition, uncoerced.”

I love art (whether painting, poetry, performance, et.al.) in large part because it introduces me to someone else’s inner world in a way that resonates with my own.

Namaste