I might be an abstract expressionist, not just on a canvas but also in my dreams, thoughts, and view of the world. I am a being of feeling, of emotion. Though I am also rational, I connect the dots of sensory experiences with feelings and experiential emotions.
As theorists point out, “an artist need not have the feeling in question in order to express it (Freeland 156).” Many people will tell me that they experience emotions all at once or more than one at a time: angry and sad at the same time; loathing and lusting at the same time, happy and sad at the same time. I think we can feel all of these emotions in a minute’s time, but none of them at the exact same time. It’s impossible. I’m beginning to sound like a philosopher. It could be because of this class or because of my current course in philosophy. Or, maybe I’ve always been a philosopher.
As I continue, I wonder how an abstract expressionist and philosopher go together. This could end up being another one of my self-discovery writings, but there is no harm in that. See, there I go philosophizing again.
When I wake up in the morning, I feel the monotony of life: the fact that I have to wake up to another day that ends at the same time, that is filled (for now) with many of the same people. My face is the same. My eyes are still the same color. My heart is still mine, and it will continue to feel this day. On the other hand, my face is mine! And my eyes are the same color! And I’m going to feel in my heart that this day is for feeling…for newness, for growth.
Life is monotonous. It is also fresh each day. Is it possible to be these two things at the same time? Opposition could be relative, just as multitasking with multiple feelings could really happen. I am a philosopher because I think in theory and I base it on knowledge and experience. I am an abstract expressionist because, as you can read in this paper, I am experiencing utter confusion about the mumbo jumbo I am writing, and I am creating this work of writing (or art) about it. I think that’s the jest of it. Narrowing things to the jest generally helps me simplify the idea. I am a confused, empathetic, and admittedly wishy-washy person. Though I hate these terms sometimes because of their derogatory notions. This writing is abstraction: freedom from representational qualities in art; the state of preoccupation; the process of considering something independently of its associations, attributes or concrete accompaniments.
But I ask, why should things be stuck in concrete form all the time? Why can’t something work independently of its connotations, cultural assumptions, and art world criticism? It’s because we are human, I’ve figured out, that we understand things in concrete form and in context. This is art. Even though an artist’s work may be abstraction, we still have to put it into a concrete box to digest it, associate it with either the artist’s intention, our reaction and interpretation, and our judgment. I wish to be free of this monotony.
The fresh factor must be transcendent of the concrete box of this world. I believe that the nature of this God exists, and he wants us to feel it, but not necessarily understand it.
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