FAMILIARITY
The "familiar" is key to my artistic creations, as my artist’s statement explains. I’ve come to paint the familiar from fresh viewpoints. For instance, I might know what a cherry is/looks like. But, how I saw/thought about cherries a year or two ago might not be how I decided to paint them last month.
You’ll see earlier cherry imagery in the fruit gallery on my Website. Some of the same elements are there as before, and some have changed—at least for me. Once I start painting or writing about the cherries—externalize and record my perceptions on the canvas or page—it becomes obvious how my thinking, doing, and believing might have evolved generally.
My artmaking experiences have helped me appreciate how the familiar can be comforting. A smell, sight, or sound that connects you to a place, person, object, or time provides a sense of orientation and belonging. Granted, not all that’s familiar triggers happy memories. However, fresh experiences may well have the power to prompt different (more positive) associations.
Air travel speeds us from one location to another. But, we miss what’s inbetween: don’t get to appreciate how the landscape and inhabitants’ ways of thinking and how they might change along the way. Road trips offer a slower transition, and less culture shock. Regardless, no matter how we get there, living in different cultures, far from family and friends, can really test who we are, how we act, and what we’re capable of enduring. There may be few sign posts to guide us, and we can feel very much alone and disoriented before making friends, securing a job, and personalizing a home.
Though our innate personalities are significant, we are also effected by the environments in which we put ourselves, as well as by others who are already established there. Their feedback combined with our own expectations do a lot to influence our self-confidence and -esteem. That is why, the familiar (for better or worse) is an important reference point, as are our responses to it. If we can use it to advantage—to change, reflect, or comparison-make—we’ll probably feel more grounded and certain. The familiar serves as a focus from which our (self-)identity forms, or to which it relates.
If you look through a poetry or picture book, you’ll know, almost immediately, which poems and images capture your attention—what will make you feel happy, sad, or indifferent. Previous experiences and exposure influence current comfort levels and needs. Steering ourselves in the right direction is a "survival mechanism" of sorts. That’s why the urge to surround ourselves with what touches us positively is a strong one. It can determine how optimistic or healthy we feel. Identifying what doesn’t work for us, and being able to disengage from it, is also important. This may be a person, place, behavior, or idea. At some stage, we all need to recognize our comfort zones, and find a niche.
Our niche doesn’t have to be exactly what we’re used to, so long as it involves things we can relate to, understand, or feel motivated to get to know better. What’s important is who we can be and what we are comfortable with today. When the past doesn’t have good associations for us, it’s what we do next that counts—knowing our limits and how to make the most of the places, people, and objects that we’re able to surround ourselves with now.
p.s. Cherry fans might like to check out some interesting Cherry Websites:
http://www.cherryrepublic.com/
http://www.cherrymkt.org/consumers/index.html
http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/aboutind/products/plant/cherries.htm
