The role of the artists

The artists in the past were unusual people – gifted, eccentric and conscious of their uniqueness. The outstanding ones were inspiring the masses and being followed by them. They were creating masterpieces what was considered magical or divine. Did this type of artists become extinct? Are they still changing the world we live in?

At the turn of the XVI and XVII century lived Caravaggio. He was known as a strange and uncontrollable genius. His excesses were generally forgiven by the society as long as he was an outstanding painter. His art was going against the stream, but was highly esteemed during his life. However nobody knew at that time what he did for painting. After his death, when his style started to be followed by all the painters, the people found out how important he was. He introduced a great realism as well as a strong chiaroscuro and is now considered to be the first baroque painter.

Is this example possible to repeat nowadays? I think it is hard. Today there are so many people naming themselves artists only because they do something different or popular. In my opinion a real artist is not only someone eccentric. It has to be a person who does the art on a superior level. Everything can be a masterpiece, but not everything should. For a lot of people(including me), good creators do not have to invent new things, but I think that they often do not understand it.

Of course currently there are some examples of unusual people in all spheres of art (for example music). There are huge masses admiring The Beatles, Elvis or Michael Jackson. Unfortunately there are not many artists of this size. In my opinion they have a real influence on the actual society, just like Caravaggio had a few centuries ago. Their music inspires other musicians and changes the lives of masses of usual people. Their art is still alive even many years after the end of their activity.

There are lots of artists not deserving to be named like this. Probably in the past it used to be the same as it is today. Fortunately, we can still find some unique individuals who represent the art on a higher level than many others and are able to move the masses above the divisions. There are gifted people capable of changing the art and the world, there were and I hope there will be, because they are essential for the development of the human culture.

2009 rewind

I finally got to writing my 2009 rewind post, 18 days after New Year’s Eve. You might say it’s quite late but I believe some things may not be rushed, they should rather come to you and be received when they are ripe and ready, no sooner. My last year was full of work events – changing my job again, coming back to gv, coming back to Białystok etc. And although I’m grateful and thankful for all the above, I must say when I think of the essence of 2009 for me, my thoughts start to move in another direction (not as distant as you might see it, though). I believe I finally found my spot/my place in life, where I feel good, where I am fully me and which had, however, been to be found rather in the inside than in the outside reality – an almost obvious truth, which came as a surprise.

2009 rewind

Hm… where to start? Guess will have to narrow down my list or will stop writing some time next year :).
The most important thing — gained first-hand experience of what it feels like to have a baby growing inside. Then, in August, became a mother. Me! A mother! Still can’t believe it myself. Since then have been falling more and more in love with my son although it wasn’t easy with the little terrorist at first. Now it’s a piece of cake. Can have at leat 10 children more :).
Started respecting and loving more many members of my closest family, since grew to understand certain things, and am grateful for their never-ending help.
Said ‘I’m sorry’ to a given person and now am proud of myself for doing so. Better late than never.
And am grateful for million other little things … It’s been a fantastic year :)

99 words on Christmas

~popcorn chain~

Silly as it seems, I first learned about it when I took the ultimate Christmas quiz ‘which chain are you?’. Mine result was: popcorn chain. In the attached picture I saw a white, long queue of snowflake resembling popped corn seeds. I immediately fell in love., so the very next day it was already on my Christmas tree.

To my amusement, everybody who visited my place that time was pretty shocked when they saw it. The most common reaction used to be:  ‘is that… popcorn?’, to which I always gladly replied: ‘yes!’.  It made the guest even more puzzled.

9002

A year of realisation that Earth is essentially a silent place and silence as such constitutes the deepest meaning of life. The questions asking what noise is, where it comes from, and how much meaning it carries seem easier to get answered.
February Having heard the pitiful demise of Radio 3 for quite some time I finally terminated this, spanning 30 years or so, love-hate relationship by simply turning the right knob off. Less noise, no regrets.
April A hit-and-miss affair with The Silent Way took into shape. Suddenly there was a whole new outlook on my own teaching. Tim Hahn, Glenys Hanson and Roslyn Young are all to be credited as the catalysts of the process. Susan Hill’s essay Silence, please! in Standpoint. magazine was equally important.
May Borah Bergman Trio made silences between sparse piano notes speak volumes in Luminescence, as did, later in the year, Mary Lou Williams (Black Christ of the Andes). True, obsessive sounds.
July The formidable silence of Drača Dolina with three tiny figures above it, climbing Vysoka.
August Discovering a silent Rome. Like that moment inside San Luigi dei Francesi when a strong, exasperated, demanding voice addressed the disrespectful, babbling crowd of tourists with one word – Silenzio! and the minute that followed.
October My father slipping into silence; Sleep inevitably repossessing his House.
November Flaubert revisited quite by chance – Three Short Works, most quiet, almost silent, translucent prose that cuts through you and grows.
December The joy of looking for best possible package for a one-off, limited Christmas edition of Thomas Merton’s Silence.

Four milestones down 2009

It was a year of saying ‘goodbye’ and ‘hello’, a year of departures and arrivals and a year of climbing: both literally and figuratively. It was also a year of learning to be detached from things that kept me dispersed. I am grateful to all friends, foes and strangers I met on my way this year for their gift of conversation. I wish for myself to have more fruitful and inspiring talks next year.
Four milestones of the year:

swimming pool – I finally overcame the fear of water and learnt to swim the crawl or even dive;

university – I finally managed to deal with the ten-year-old enterprise under the name of my being a student;

Krywan – I met there a monster of life and confirmed myself in belief that a winner is not the one who acts at all costs;

my husband – I fell in love with him, again :)

2009 Rewind

Thinking of the 2009 that is now gone, I think I could paraphrase a poem which I heard with some of the gv groups at the beginning of this year’s courses.
There was a hole. I noticed it. I fell into it. I got out. I walked on.
I came across it once more. I noticed it. I fell into it again. I got out again. I walked on.
I came across the hole…
I am becoming a different person even though I fall into the same hole again and again. It seems that noticing is more important than avoiding.
It is all quite optimistic I would say. Or is it not?

Happy New Year Everyone!

It’s 2010, and I can’t imagine spending a transition between years in a better way than I did this year, or is that last year? Dunno, anyway things in India have not changed much and I am still having the time of my life and never want to leave. The reports of the English weather have done nothing to change my mind about this and I’m so psyched to still have two months of sun left.
If I remember correctly then the last time I wrote was Arambol, that was a bit of a mammoth email and hurt my brain and fingers a lot, but it was just before christmas right? Yeah, Arambol was lovely enough but it was full of crazy hippies off their faces all the time, not really our scene but I’m glad we went because we had some crazy ruins with a few crazy people, my favourite of which was the naked man in the restaurant. On the second day I think it was, we decided we were hungry at around three o’clock in the afternoon, and so as rational human beings do we went for lunch at a respectable looking restaurant where wed eaten the night before and that morning and had really enjoyed the food. It was boiling hot and we didn’t much fancy scorching in the sun even more so went to sit under the cover of the roof, right in front of a man who appeared to be sleeping on a beer bottle. This being Goa and India, we didn’t really give it a second thought, and spent a good 15 minutes how brilliant the blend of spices were in the food and how excellently the fish was cooked, like the pretentious pricks we are, when Freya turned around and said ‘Guys, I think that guy behind us might be naked’. We laughed at her and continued with our food admiration, when all of a sudden we heard an almighty crash, turned around and the guy behind had broken his chair and was sprawled, indeed completely naked, on the floor of this restaurant. A couple of hours later when we were coming back from the beach he was still lying in that exact same position. Amazing.
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