Hmmmmmmm...me and a blog. What fresh hell is this!?

I'm going to muse a bit, answer any questions if I can. Talk about the nature of art, of seeing. Share ideas. You know....blog-type stuff.

It's just a scribble here at the start. Like any painting - just some initial thoughts jotted down onto a blank, flat nothing that slowly develops into a dense, rich field of idea, movement and color. Words and bits of color are so much the same. Words, colors, sounds, scents, spices and herbs - they all serve to enliven the blank spaces and color the canvas of desire and longing. We are all artists in one way or another. At its very least it can be seen in the dark ugliness of a wandering man who paints and sculpts himself in grime and filth that speaks with all the harsh cruelty of "Guernica." Another primps and plumps, applies scents and frills and fills their life with pretty things in all the fuss and florid puffery of a Frangonard. Still another cooks, dances, one sings, some think and some of us sculpt and paint and draw.

Art is the result of the urge to make tangible the evanescence of thought and longing, to make a thing come from the invisible energy of thinking and feeling. The firing of neurons is followed by the gravitational pull of energy to itself, organizing itself, gaining in strength then mass and heft and finally moving from the invisiblity of sparks between nerves to a thing of substance, meaning and spirit. And so we get to play at the universe's game when we make art. Stars and planets, steel and leaves and flesh are virtually identical in their most elementary aspect and all derive from the innate longing of energy to find its expression. No "thing" truly exists other than as bits of energy floating close together in a void. Things, the universe, us, art - all are the result of the urge of energy to organize itself into a thing and so to be whole in expression.

The value and meaning of art is wholly and exclusively one's own province. Art, by nature is the objectification of the purely subjective. So, these are my opinions, my thoughts and ideas and are offered only as fodder for thought, never statements of absolute truth - at least not for anyone other than for me. You know what they say about an opinion and the south end of the digestive tract - everybody's got one! So, if you disagree you are correct, if you find something you agree with you are no more or less right than the other guy. The freedom to organize a belief system about the nature of what you think of art, what you like and what you hate and for some, how you go about making art derived from that belief system is what I hope to encourage, support and perhaps facilitate with essays and practical suggestions, techniques and information from my experience as a working artist.

So get in touch. Help fuel the discussion. My e-mail address is here. jtgrantstcc@gmail.com If you have a question feel free to ask whatever you will and if I can answer I will here or in a return e-mail. If I don't know the answer I'll let you know. Become a member and please freely pass along the site address to others who might be interested or find it useful.

Like any new canvas I'm looking forward to this blog thing. And just like a new painting the first marks, though always the most intimidating are the one's I always miss most sweetly when the painting is done.