What am I thinking about art today? I think I want to create like nobody’s business and paint like nobody else can, because they do not have my hand or mind or my vision. I am unique and have something unique to say to the world. They might think it is “valid” or they might not. Those are thoughts, not facts. If I love my artistic direction then it is THE valid direction. My direction is unique to whom I am. The world can choose to embrace it or not. Since I am communicating to the world – that would be nice if they did. Time, and they will tell. In the meantime, time and I will tell them what is in my heart and what I need to shout from the hills.
World, this is my art. It is MY art. Would you like to share in it? I would like to share it with you. I would like it to be your art too. I want to strike a chord with you and prompt you sing a common harmony that is in your heart. I am unique to you. And yet, I am the same. We are each unique. We are each common. The commonality – that is where the communication starts. The uniqueness – that is where the appreciation and savouring takes place.
I want my art to make your heart skip a beat, as it does mine. I want it to thrill you, as it does me. I want my art to sooth you and make you transcend into your Maker, as it does me. I want you to feel the Omnipresent who lives in all hearts and all places. That is what is common. That is our connection. I want you to feel it.
You and I are unique manifestations of exactly the same thing. Utterly unique. Utterly the same. All at the same time. That is the paradox, and the beauty of it. That is what makes us living creatures. That is what makes us living souls. That is what makes us a living species.
I celebrate our commonality. I do it uniquely. Our commonality is the thumping heartbeat of life – it is God coursing through our veins, molecules, notions, idiosyncrasies, jaws, fingerprints, habits, triumphs and struggles and aging. We are grandly designed. We are grandly one. We are grandly utterly, utterly unique with infinite uniquely compiled components crafted by treasuring grand hands that thrill at His unique and brand new creation each time. We are loved by our Maker. I feel it as I reveal with my art my transcendence in God’s world. It is a feeling that I want to hold. It is a feeling I want to expose and make available to anyone blocking it. I want to open the commonality of our existence and life. Our Substance.
- Kathy Marlene Bailey