Friday, October 5, 2007

Running / flying / fling

Running, flying, flinging myself back across the Atlantic.
Again in the pressure filled capsule that seems to relax me so;
Undoubtledly it's the bubbles.

I read these lines by A.O. Scott in the New York times:

Just about everyone who has been the parent of a young child has a priceless collection of masterpieces: treasured drawings and paintings taped to a closet door, stuck to the refrigerator with magnets or rolled up in a box somewhere in the basement. The value of these artifacts is personal and sentimental, but they can also have an aesthetic power that goes beyond parental pride. The untaught sense of color and composition that children seem naturally to possess sometimes yields extraordinary results, and the combination of instinct and accident that governs their creative activity can produce astonishing works of art.


Movie Minutes: 'My Kid Could Paint That' Video

I wish I could have stopped there. But he continues:

Except that these magical finger-paint daubings and crayon scribblings aren’t really works of art in any coherent sense of the term, but rather the vital byproducts of play, part of the cognitive and sensory awakening that is the grand, universal vocation of childhood.

Not sure what this refers to, or why it inspires me and depresses me. I believe all of us have that Platonic spark within us, if we are willing to release it and not be embarrassed by it. It's vital, and brilliant. But, sadly, not great art.

Cheers,

BB

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