petals  and  thistles

 

         Some of my

        thoughts, beliefs,  musings, reflections, angsts ...

 

                       

                                                                  

                   What ART is to me 

                                              

     I have a very simplistic approach to art.  While I believe in freedom of expression, I value equally an artist's desire and ability to be understood, and thereby, appreciated. This underlying urge in an artist to connect is, to me, the very passion and discipline of art.  This is why I cannot feign seeing something profoundly cerebral, or artistically sublime in an artwork that I don't understand, or which visually repels me. Who was it who said that each reader reads only what is within himself?  Perhaps, this applies as well to how we look at a painting, or a sculpture  - any piece of presupposed art for that matter. I don't see any point, therefore, in trying to impress others by gloating over a canvas of blunt distortions and fathomless abstractions,  with colors and forms that neither "fill " my soul, nor titillate my aesthetics. In this sense, I love the great Impressionists - Gauguin and Monet, without an apology!              

                     

                                                             

 

                                  What is TIME to me ?

    We all have equal time in our hands, atleast before we pass away in this life. It's how we make use of it that makes the difference.  Some condescendingly say to me: " Oh, it's just right that you are able to do that, since you have plenty of time, unlike me, I have no time..." They really get my goat! - (pun intended)  They're like saying they have more important things to do than I have in my life.  These people simply confuse time with inclination.  When one does not have the inclination - or desire, or drive, or determination - to create poetry in his/her world; then he/she will never find the time to sit down and write a poem. Simple as that. No excuses please!

         May I pass on what I've heard sometime in college, this saying, or words to this effect:  " The busier a man is, the more time he has for everything."

                                                                                                        

                   on Losing Paradise

     Losing paradise was heart-breaking, and yet what's the point in harping on the requiems of the past?  After all, paradise is a state of mind, in its purest essence.  We can create our own paradise in a cramped apartment, or in the recesses of our infinite beings.  We can always help ourselves to a new beginning - a new dawn - on which to build another paradise.

                         - from my book, ONE LIFE'S BOUQUET

                                                                                                                             

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