Tuesday, February 25, 2014
heART Presence by Joan Maureen Collins
I love that the word heart includes the word art. Or is it the word art that makes up the word heart? It doesn't surprise me that these words are intertwined. After all, each heart beat is the engine for human expression- the pulse of life. I recently read a statistic that in an average lifetime, the heart beats 2.5 billion times. It made me curious to know how many times my heart beats while creating a piece of art? 100,000 beats. Famous artists over time have been quoted noting a heart presence in their work. "If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing," Marc Chagall and Ralph Waldo Emerson , "In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine." And of course, Vincent van Gogh, "I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart," Ah, and then there's our pulse...and attraction. Oh yes, that unmistakable I've gotta have you, completely uncontrollable, heart stopping attraction. It only takes 4 seconds to know we are attracted to someone. 4 seconds! 8 heartbeats! The time it takes to say "You take my breath away." I wonder, is this the same for art? If it takes only 4 seconds to make an impression, how quickly do we know we are swept away by color, movement, rhythm, lines, shadow or planes? Do we make such quick judgements when it comes to art? Maybe none of this matters , but my own experience ties love, passion and forms of expression very much together. As quoted by Marc Chagall, "Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing." This valentines day, I hope you share your passion for art with a love in your life, and count the beats of your heart...well at least for a few seconds until your pulse takes over... XO Joan