So Much For Divination

I remember with my art, which was mostly the single nude from models, it took me two years to answer the question "what would I do if I could do whatever I wanted" And then when it emerged I resisted it at first "Oh no, French art, I've become a follower of Rodin...."

That was followed some ten years later by seeing that the root was actually in comic book heroes. Adam Gopnick said something like "art is the fulfillment of a dream you had when you were twelve." I had a model who said "I see that you are dissatisfied by your medium [terracotta] and will change to another one soon."

I didn't think much of it because in my mind I was finally hitting my stride after twenty stubborn years focused on clay reliefs and free standing figures. [relieved by theater work, but let's just say I saw a lot of brown] Then one day I took some photographs of a six week pose I was working on and got swept away in the world of photography, where reality isn't an ism, naturalism is not something to make an issue of.

It was a lighter than air feeling to suddenly drop issues I'd sweated over since college days, rather than 'solve' them. They had become a given. I was months into it before I remembered her saying that about changing mediums. So much for divination; it was like being given the key to the gate and then climbing over the wall anyway.