a blue soul breaking in upon my pictures

"Will God or someone else give me the strength to breathe the breath of prayer and mourning into my paintings, the breath of prayer for redemption and resurrection?"

-Marc Chagall

This weekend I drove down to Baylor for the "Sacred Texts, Holy Images: Chagall and Roualt" exhibit. While walking through the exhibit I kept thinking about the creative process and how Chagall chose how to represent the concepts of the Bible... how he didn't just show what was literally happening in that moment in the Bible, he saw that there was more happening, and he found a beautiful way to convey the magic of the inexpressable. Chagall saw that there was so much more happening in the world than that which we can see - informed by his belief in Judaism, a religion of mystery and unknowingness and the possibility that the magic shroud veiling the Divine hides a presence greater than can fit in the everyday - and he found a way to paint that, which... augh... that's exactly why I'm doing all of this... if he can express the inexpressable, visually, and show exactly what was in his heart, then I ...have to... because it's possible... if that makes any sense. The image above is titled "promise to jerusalem"... it is about God always being present in our lives, as a mysterious something that is tangibly there but whose presence is still shrouded from us. This image and the one below have stuck in my mind and I can't get them out..

This one is of the moment of creation. It is impossible as an artist to disconnect yourself from the concept of artist and art as creator and creature, and this work says so much about how Chagall viewed himself in relation to his works. See how the creator and creature act as one figure on the page... they are entwined within eachother, each carrying a piece of the other in a sense. Chagall's art is so thoroughly full of him, it cannot escape being a part of him. and that is fantastically inspiring... makes me want to take my art classes even more seriously and really work to figure out my artistic identity.