[Today’s featured artwork for Day 34 of the 365 Days Project is by Mark Susinno.]
Look below the surface. There is more than meets the eye.
#34 – Artists see what others may not perceive. Art is a doorway into an enhanced experience of the world.
There are as many ways to see a river. To many, it is a place of recreation – for cooling off on a hot summer’s day or for white water rafting. It can generate income for businesses, serving as a watery highway for transporting goods or to generate electricity or, unfortunately, as dumping grounds for toxic waste. An artist sees all of this and these themes might find their way into works of art.
But there is another way to see rivers: to slow down and seek to understand them as they are. A photographer will notice how the sunlight dances on the river’s currents while a filmmaker might look beneath the surface to capture the world beneath the water’s surface. A musician might listen to the river’s orchestra of sounds while a painter knows that a river is not just “blue” but a surprising myriad of colors.
Through intense observation, artists discover what a river has to tell them and they are forever changed by it. The art they create brings that experience to others so that we, too, might understand that the world we perceive is often a superficial view as we rush about in a whirlwind of activity.
Art can change perceptions. Look deeper and listen.
“The artist sees what others only catch a glimpse of.”
Leonardo da Vinci
“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”
Edgar Degas
Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life.”
John Lubbock
“Art is an effort to create, beside the real world, a more humane world.”
Andre Maurois
Mark Susinno’s artwork can be viewed at: Artists for Conservation
The 365 Days Project
In 2012, Serena Kovalosky committed to writing an article a day for 365 days as an exploration into the lives of artists and the value of creative thinking in our society.
Experience the full evolution of the project! Click below to read the entire collection of articles.
Description of the image included in this post:
The Egg Poachers
Mark Susinno, Pennsylvania
Acrylic on linen
Tidal Pool
Mark Susinno, Pennsylvania
Acrylic on linen
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