A Passion for Creativity

Tracing Creative Influences.

“Writing on the wall is not allowed here,” said the museum attendant as he walked toward me. “Ahh, but I’m not writing on the wall,” was my response. “ I’m writing on a piece of paper on top of a brochure on top of a catalog. It’s not going through to the wall at all.” “Yes, personally I don’t care, but it’s still not permitted” he replied.

“Ok! Got it. Sorry!”

That was earlier this week as I was taking some notes on a sculpture titled  DYBY, by Magdalena Abakanowicz. It’s part of the permanent collection at Weatherspoon Art Museum at The University of North Carolina in Greensboro. I’d forgotten how much I admire her work, until, turning a corner; I saw it at the end of a hallway in front of a window. Abakanowicz’s style is immediately recognizable to me, familiar. The strength of her work always wrenches my gut. The headless, life-size or larger figures she creates never fail to spark a mental/emotional, questioning inner dialog about our human existence.

What Abakanowicz verbalizes about art and imagination is also notable. Here’s the last paragraph as written on the museum wall’s description plaque next to DYBY.

Interestingly, if someone asked me to list artistic influences, her name would not immediately come to mind. It took seeing her work again to remind me that if my figurative paintings speak  honestly, it’s partly due to experiencing her work.

Come to think of it, how do people come up with those “artists who have influenced me” lists so quickly?  I’d have to think long and hard to put one together. In a way, everything we admire, everything that affects us, leaves an imprint on some internal level.