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Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality--not as we expect it to be but as it is--is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love. - Frederick Buechner (b. 1926)
but in a broad sense I now have come to understand the painting as the moment when human life begins--the act of fertilization (egg and sperm), two genotypes discovering one another and setting into motion the algorithm of a human life. I decided to name the painting “Discovery” after a famous quotation by Albert Szent-Gyorgi (1893-1986) who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1937. My paintings are about ideas and questions, not necessarily answers--how might the viewer interpret the painting “Discovery?” Does it convey the importance of a scientific discovery--perhaps a cure for the disease MS brought about by fetal stem cell research? Or, does “Discovery” convey faith and the recognition of a human life begun? My wakeful dreams allow me to communicate with another part of myself, but I also hope that my finished paintings may make viewers think about some of the same questions and ideas. The painting “Discovery” causes me to think deeper on the question of stem cell research and ethical concerns. Certainly, fetal stem cell research may benefit people with MS tremendously, but it also raises ethical questions that we must confront together as a society and as individuals. Regardless, stem cell research is a very timely topic with regard to healing and one that I believe my unconscious psyche has given some thought to.
Moon (Broken Art)
People with MS often feel as though they have let their family and close friends down, and that they are somehow responsible for developing the disease. Particularly vulnerable are young mothers (the group most commonly diagnosed with MS) who often feel a tremendous sense of guilt for not being able to carryout their usual work within the family. Although, I have no children it is still mistakenly easy to feel a profound sense of culpability for having MS.
My artwork is about bringing unity to myself. It is about listening to instead of shouting at reality. It is also about triggering my mind’s unconscious thought processes toward healing--by paying attention to and making sense of the normally silent, repressed and often time distant elements within myself. Because I am also trained as a neuroscientist and believe that the mind plays a role in healing the body, I am approaching my art as an experiment. It begs the question do we have more control over our health than we appreciate? And if so, how might a person harness that control? Perhaps, by letting go of control entirely--the paradox of combating chronic stress and depression?
There are presently thirty-four abstract (non-representation) paintings on BrokenArtGallery.com, but I will discuss three briefly (with sister images) so that you might better understand “Wakeful Dreaming” --my invented “Healing Ritual” of unplanned creativity and imagination. Often times my analysis is personal and would only have significance to me, but these three paintings (and sister images) can be understood on several different levels.
Rainforest (original painting and digital painting)
“The point is that nobody knows. Things like the weather are so subtle, and what effect the rainforest has on any of that stuff - oxygen, all the things that you hear about, the big scares - it’s not known. But as long as it’s not known, it’s not a good idea to rip them up and tear them down, you know what I mean?”
- Jerry Garcia (1942 - 1995)
2) Once again, created without planned intent, I interpret the painting “Rainforest” as the global act of deforestation--the cutting, burning and irretrievable extinction of our planet’s most valuable and underappreciated resource, biological diversity. We are losing medicinal plants, insects and other species that may ultimately hold the cures for diseases like MS at an unprecedented pace. As a scientist who is also afflicted with an incurable disease, this issue is very close to me. I see the deforestation of the world’s rainforests (and loss of biological diversity) as the single most important environmental issue of our time, and I feel symbolically linked to global deforestation and the burning rainforests with every passing day through the demyelination of nerve cells that is continuing unabated within my own body--someone should listen. I named this painting “Rainforest” after a relatively obscure quotation by Jerry Garcia (1942 - 1995) an American Songwriter and Musician who formed the Grateful Dead band.
Discovery (original painting and digital painting)
“Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought.”
- Albert Szent-Gyorgi (1893-1986), 1937 Nobel Laureate in Medicine
1) The painting “Discovery” is an abstraction that I created without planned conscious symbolic intent (as are all my paintings),