Meaning and Purpose
Meaning and Purpose – Why am I doing this at all? What am I trying to say? Does it matter?
I’ve asked myself these questions more times than I can count and I still do. Especially in the quiet stretches, or when the world seems like it has gone crazy and I guess it always does.
And here’s where I’ve landed, at least for now:
I don’t always know why I’m doing it.
I just know I have to, so I do.
I came up with a saying years ago: “It is with intuition that a work of art is created and with reason that an excuse is made for it’s existence.”
There’s something inside that insists on making, shaping, expressing—call it instinct, call it following your intuition, call it compulsion. But it’s been with me as long as I can remember. Not because I have something profound to say, but because saying—through color, form, rhythm, word—is how I stay connected to something deeper than thinking. How I gaze into the deep and how it gazes back.
I don’t create to explain. I create to listen. To keep my ear to the ground. To feel the hum. To converse and interact with things. The work often shows me what I didn’t know I knew. What I couldn’t name until it took shape and often things for which no name has yet been invented. The proposed meaning comes after, sometimes long after, and sometimes never. And that’s okay.
As for whether it matters—well, maybe not in the grand scheme of things. The stars don’t care. History forgets if it ever knew. But it matters to me. It’s how I stay awake. It’s how I stay whole. It’s how I keep from going numb in a world that pushes a million other things in front of your face begging for attention.
Many times, things I made years ago will end up on someone else’s wall someone I’ve never met, and they’ll tell me they look at it every day year after year. That’s enough. But even if that never happened, I’d still do it. Because the act itself is the meaning for me. The making is the message.
And if there’s anything I’m trying to say, might be something like this:
I was here. I showed up. I saw this. I felt this. And I responded and here is what it looks like.
"Not because I have something profound to say, but because saying—through color, form, rhythm, word—is how I stay connected to something deeper than thinking." Amen, Cecil. How grandly you have captured it. Thank you.
Yes the work itself is a connection to something deep, with no name and yes sometimes it feels like I am compelled to work through the puzzle.