2
Meaning
Posted by Cecilia Leger
on
9:15 PM
Moving Stones by J Jordan Bruns (http://www.jjbruns.com/)
Like every good liberal arts student, I took the required Art Appreciation class where I learned to toss around words like "postmodernism" and "surrealism" and that it's WRONG to say things like "any two year old could have done this," even if with every fiber of your being you thought one could. I also learned that, with a piece of art, you're not supposed to, you know, like it. At least not without a good reason. A reason with a polysyllabic word in it (preferably a few). Of course, most important, any piece worth its salt had to have meaning; meaning that I could write about at length (10 pages, double spaced, with a one-inch margin all around); meaning that could bring up my GPA.
But meaning, I have found, is elusive at best – and deeply personal. It should not be dissected and pinned to a board for inspection.
Last year I blogged about Jordan Burns' exhibit because it moved me. Simply that. I'm sure there's a whole vocabulary to express the artist's mastery with the medium, but I don't possess it. All I know is that through my whole – oh let's call it "sabbatical" – my heart and thoughts kept drifting back to my memory of the pieces.
Today, I came back to the work itself. I sat on cross-legged across one piece, Swerve, and just let myself get lost in it. Felt a sort of home-coming in the play of light and shadow; a measure of comfort in the chaos and ruin it depicts; hope in the way the stones look full of life somehow. And meaning was revealed in what the print pulled out of me; in the tie – strong and true – that it has had over me even through the darkness and silence of the last few months.
Like every good liberal arts student, I took the required Art Appreciation class where I learned to toss around words like "postmodernism" and "surrealism" and that it's WRONG to say things like "any two year old could have done this," even if with every fiber of your being you thought one could. I also learned that, with a piece of art, you're not supposed to, you know, like it. At least not without a good reason. A reason with a polysyllabic word in it (preferably a few). Of course, most important, any piece worth its salt had to have meaning; meaning that I could write about at length (10 pages, double spaced, with a one-inch margin all around); meaning that could bring up my GPA.
But meaning, I have found, is elusive at best – and deeply personal. It should not be dissected and pinned to a board for inspection.
Last year I blogged about Jordan Burns' exhibit because it moved me. Simply that. I'm sure there's a whole vocabulary to express the artist's mastery with the medium, but I don't possess it. All I know is that through my whole – oh let's call it "sabbatical" – my heart and thoughts kept drifting back to my memory of the pieces.
Today, I came back to the work itself. I sat on cross-legged across one piece, Swerve, and just let myself get lost in it. Felt a sort of home-coming in the play of light and shadow; a measure of comfort in the chaos and ruin it depicts; hope in the way the stones look full of life somehow. And meaning was revealed in what the print pulled out of me; in the tie – strong and true – that it has had over me even through the darkness and silence of the last few months.
