| Spirit
Image:
Do we really die? Is this life all there is to life? A shaman answers
these questions by creating a spirit sculpture as the earthly home of a
departed spirit who will remain with the family, and continue to provide
for their needs. The shaman through meditation and ritual enters into the
spirit world of the departed and fuses the materials at hand into an image
of the departed' soul.
The shaman avoids surface appearance concerning himself more with metaphors
that describe the individuals attributes. There was something poetically
appealing about the materials and metaphor fusing in this work, so I set
about translating the forms and textures into an electronic image using
Paint Shop Pro 5 and a simple computer mouse.
The most difficult aspect was translating
real textured materials into electronic invented textures. I locked the
overall roundish shape into the corners with bits of blues and violets
rather than let the shape float in the centre. I added chromatic points
of articulation in the eyes and contrasted that with glowing blue accents
along the top. It has I think an other-worldly quality to it.
It is my opinion that the
roots of art reach down into our ability to forge dynamic similarities
between animals and people and people and objects. The artist is in his
or her own way the modern shaman, giving form, articulation, and mood to
materials such that they move our souls.
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