Coming Attractions

"PEAR-LY THERE" 

 Mixed-media collage  12" x 16"

Opening Reception - June 3, 2011 
Gallery at the Weinhard
Weinhard Hotel - Dayton, WA

Converting our imaginations....

Image via Wikipedia

Revisiting one of my favorite study books from last year, Winter Grace by Kathleen Fischer, I found this excerpt on page 15....

"The present situation of many older people, old and young alike, has been described as a disease of the imagination. The older persons have accepted the negative images of old age, made them their own, and begun to live out of these images of incompetence and insignificance. The task of spirituality of aging is to convert the imaginations of both old and young to a new vision of the human. And this can only happen if the old themselves refuse to let society define them, and instead internalize new images of the later years."

Now not all of MindSieve's readers are old by any stretch of the mind but notice above that both old and young need a new vision of the human. I'd wager that sometime in your youth your own imagination was questioned by someone or doubted - e.g., you drew outside the lines of the coloring book pages, or your picture of your dog didn't really look like your dog (even if you thought it did) or your wouldn't want to be a painter or a writer, you can't make money being a painter or a writer, etc........

So for those of us who can chart our own courses now, grab onto that new vision and be and become who you are meant to be. If you've small children, or hard-headed teenagers still under your influence, help shape their vision in any way you can by pointing out to them those who are becoming what they are and want to be - like their grandmothers - like their aunties - like their, heaven forbid, their mothers! Oh the visions we can imagine and see for ourselves once we are freed from behind our own bars!


*Doesn't the Cassatt portrait say right out loud - "Don't mess with me, my dear - just make me look terrific - because I am!"