Quote of the Week

"What have we been doing all these centuries but trying to call God back to the mountain, or, failing that, raise a peep out of anything that isn't us? What is the difference between a cathedral and a physics lab? We spy on whales and on intersteller radio objects; we starve ourselves and pray til we're blue."

~Anne Dillard

"These God Made Things."

Today I critiqued with Simon Cottrell. One of the first things he said about my work was that making rocks was almost like an act of God. Not saying that I'm god like, or even anything spectacular, but referring to the fact that I make these naturally occurring objects with some degree of realism. It brought to mind a phrase someone else used to describe my work; speaking of my bits and pieces and replica rocks as "these god made things."

After kicking these things around in my head I began to wonder if there is a more spiritual side to these things that I make. I wonder if on some deeper, almost sub-conscious level making this type of work is my way of paying homage to whatever power put these magnificent things here in the first place.

But I also wonder if this is a level of the work that I even need to understand. I think it certainly plays a part, but it's not my main aim for the work (Although I think one of my aims is to get people to see rocks/geology with the same amazement and reverence and curiosity that I do.) I just wonder how many levels of meaning a work has to have before it's deemed "good" or even "well thought out"? And how many of these levels of meaning does the artist have to think through or consider? Especially since the viewer will bring their own levels of meaning to the piece no matter how clear the artist thinks they're being.

I don't know. Maybe this is an attempt at looking at the work through a different lense. Maybe it fits, maybe it doesn't. Maybe this is just an attempt to sound smarter than I really am.