Sunday, November 11, 2012

A Mature Style

An early Rothko:

Mark Rothko, Underground Fantasy, Oil on canvas, c. 1940, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

A "mature" Rothko:
Mark Rothko, No. 14, 1960, Oil on canvas, 1960, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

We cannot see all ends.  Breakthroughs may be separated by twenty years or more.  As humans, we are impatient, wanting to see the full timeline of our lives and our careers at once.  We seek this knowledge to quell our fears: "Will I fail?  Will I stop producing?  Did I make the right choices?"  

But as humans, we are also fixed in the moment, working toward one goal at a time.  Each small victory is succeeded by a vast array of choices, each representing a divergent pathway that can lead to new victories.  

As time goes on, the pathways start to close, not because of age, but because of maturity.  We circle through the forest until we realize that there is, in fact, only one trail that leads to the summit of the mountain.  The one way that we must go.  It is at this point when our careers merge with our lives, and we are artists.  But the only way to get there is to work through the woods.

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