On Art and Revelation

Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.
Kahlil Gibran

Some time ago my daughter was having a conversation with an artist friend of hers who showed us her latest creative explorations with found pictures and masks. She had used black masks to expose and enhance a small portion of a photograph by covering up the majority of it. It achieved the striking effect of making this small detail that was exposed seem weightier, packed with more information and emotion than if seen in its original context. I looked at it with the wondrous eyes of a child and felt like I could climb into the small open spaces between the masks and crawl into hidden, secret worlds packed with jewels and amazing stories as yet untold. My heart filled with awe and excitement and I wanted to run out right away and attempt to create something just as beautiful and powerful. Would I have the courage to trust my instincts and create something that could be called art? What would that look like?

Some time before meeting this artist, my daughter and I had sat in her car, waiting for a parking space to come open and she had said something very profound: “Memory is a necessary failure.” She was referring to the discrepancies between various accounts of one occurrence and how our memory tends to obscure certain aspects of the experience and enhance and distort others. We need our memories to survive, but they always fail to portray reality accurately.

We often hear someone refer to someone’s “photographic memory” as being 100% accurate, and consider photographs and videos as accurate portrayals and memorials of past incidents. Journal entries and personal memories are often accorded similar characteristics of historical accuracy. I myself like to think that the memories I record here are accurate and fair portrayals of my experience, but today I’ve realized that what I am doing here is more an artistic production than a historical record. The stories I tell disclose as well as obscure aspects of that experience, and as I disclose and reveal my innermost secrets and observations, I am merely hyperfocusing on a tiny fraction of my past while obscuring its much larger context.

I often feel a level of anxiety when I realize how distorted my memories can seem to others that have shared an experience with me. I pride myself in being honest and fair and try my hardest to record my memories that way, but I know that I can only describe what I can see in my heart and I am blind to things that others can clearly see. I can only imagine what is lost to my vision, and often my imagination is quite limited. Nevertheless, I hope that in these pages I can exercise a degree of control as to what I tell and don’t tell, what I show and don’t show, and in that way help others to climb into my secret world through that little space between carefully placed masks. Hopefully, the joy of discovery someone feels when focusing on these sharply revealed fractions of reality will overshadow any regrets or pain that the concealment of the larger picture may cause. That is my honest intention and I trust you will accept my sincere apologies otherwise. Even more than that, I would be really glad if you, my readers, would share your own memories and perspectives that will shed light on what I have obscured.