"White. A blank page or canvas.
The challenge: bring order to the whole.
Through design. Composition. Tension. Balance. Light. And harmony."
Thus does Georges Seurat introduce us to the artist's life in Sunday in the Park with George.
Yesterday the gardener did just that with my pocket park.
Even though it is my refuge of tranquility, it had become what every untended garden becomes. Tangled. Overgrown. A jungle. In other words, natural.
And natural is one thing the artistic mind cannot abide.
Whether painter, sculptor, architect, film maker, or writer, artists want order. Design. Composition. Tension. Balance. Light. Harmony.
And when they find it, they freeze it in amber for us. For our admiration. And to believe, for one shiny moment, that life is thus.
My landlady hires two men to tend the garden. One to hold a hose a couple times a week like a mother providing water to her thirsty children. The other to show up twice a year to bring a father's disciplinary hand to the unruly brood.
And discipline he did. Uprooting everything in the beds. Dividing. Replanting. Trimming with the ruthless hand of a visionary who sacrifices the present for a better future.
Of course, both views are an illusion.
Gardens can no more be tamed than can life. The trick is to develop a painter's eye for life. To create order in our minds while enjoying moments as they present themselves to us.
And to share those moments with others.
The challenge: bring order to the whole.
Through design. Composition. Tension. Balance. Light. And harmony."
Thus does Georges Seurat introduce us to the artist's life in Sunday in the Park with George.
Yesterday the gardener did just that with my pocket park.
Even though it is my refuge of tranquility, it had become what every untended garden becomes. Tangled. Overgrown. A jungle. In other words, natural.
And natural is one thing the artistic mind cannot abide.
Whether painter, sculptor, architect, film maker, or writer, artists want order. Design. Composition. Tension. Balance. Light. Harmony.
And when they find it, they freeze it in amber for us. For our admiration. And to believe, for one shiny moment, that life is thus.
My landlady hires two men to tend the garden. One to hold a hose a couple times a week like a mother providing water to her thirsty children. The other to show up twice a year to bring a father's disciplinary hand to the unruly brood.
And discipline he did. Uprooting everything in the beds. Dividing. Replanting. Trimming with the ruthless hand of a visionary who sacrifices the present for a better future.
Of course, both views are an illusion.
Gardens can no more be tamed than can life. The trick is to develop a painter's eye for life. To create order in our minds while enjoying moments as they present themselves to us.
And to share those moments with others.
