Some artworks insist on storytelling more than others. One example to be found in the Fantasy/Narrative Gallery, and currently on exhibit at the Sunnyside Medical Center, is Divine Intervention: the mottled, colorful background suggests a divine presence permeating everything behind the single gold lines running across the foreground. The gold lines represent individual lives, some short, some long, and all have their difficult (black, dark gray background) to easy times (yellow, light blue, white, etc.). When drawing each line I felt the need to make up stories about that individual gold line—oh no, now she lost her job, whew! they got through the earthquake, found a new place to rent, and on and on. Viewers are invited to imagine whatever they would like about how divine intervention interacts with one’s life. Some call it fate.
The first I heard of the idea horizon of possibilities was in reading “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari (Harper Collins, 2015). My immediate vision was of the curvature of Earth with spouts of differing energy propelled above the horizon. This is not the situation.
In a footnote (p. 45) Harari explains: “A ‘horizon of possibilities’ means the entire spectrum of beliefs, practices and experiences that are open before a particular society, given its ecological, technological and cultural limitations. Each society and each individual usually explore only a tiny fraction of their horizon of possibilities.”
So now the elements include beliefs, practices, experiences, plus society, ecology, technology, and cultural limitations. My composition rendering this idea got quite complicated. Horizons of Possibilities is 16 x 20 inches on Arches hot press 140 lb paper using pigment markers, gel and Micron pens.
It’s easy enough to recognize such horizons in retrospect; think Hillary in the 2016 USA election for president. She is female and would’ve interrupted the unbroken male tradition. In my own history I recognize how limited the possibilities for me as a woman to get into directing film 50 years ago. I’m sure each of us can recount some horizons only recognized in looking back, while yet unable to identify all possibilities present.
The first I heard of the idea horizon of possibilities was in reading “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari (Harper Collins, 2015). My immediate vision was of the curvature of Earth with spouts of differing energy propelled above the horizon. This is not the situation.
In a footnote (p. 45) Harari explains: “A ‘horizon of possibilities’ means the entire spectrum of beliefs, practices and experiences that are open before a particular society, given its ecological, technological and cultural limitations. Each society and each individual usually explore only a tiny fraction of their horizon of possibilities.”
So now the elements include beliefs, practices, experiences, plus society, ecology, technology, and cultural limitations. My composition rendering this idea got quite complicated. Horizons of Possibilities is 16 x 20 inches on Arches hot press 140 lb paper using pigment markers, gel and Micron pens.
It’s easy enough to recognize such horizons in retrospect; think Hillary in the 2016 USA election for president. She is female and would’ve interrupted the unbroken male tradition. In my own history I recognize how limited the possibilities for me as a woman to get into directing film 50 years ago. I’m sure each of us can recount some horizons only recognized in looking back, while yet unable to identify all possibilities present.
In Horizons of Possibilities there are seven primary large circles representing seven different cultures. Each is identified by its signature cadmium red square formation. Each could be interpreted as corporate, religious, ethnic, geographic, or whatever cultures. Some of these large circles mingle, as cultures do these days.
I felt the need to insert sub-cultures, more easily identified as circular objects of varying size colored in rings of black (beliefs), silver gray (practices) and hot pink (experiences). The size of each color ring indicates its significance.
Lining the rim of each large circle are more cadmium red squares and forms representing ecological (hexagram/greens), technological (squares/bronze) and cultural (triangle/purple) limitations. The little hairy lines on the rim are an artistic touch.
The wavy colored background lines—yellow, dark blue, light blue and light gray, white—stand in for everything that isn’t human.
The sub-cultures are vying for attention, enlarging and perhaps threatening the primary culture. Again I found myself making up stories for the different situations. For example: the central culture has quite a large sub-culture and three minor subs, and is responding by doubling down on its presence (more red squares), assimilating some of the beliefs (black squares), sharing experiences (hot pink) or practices (silver gray). Horizons of Possibilities speaks to a multitude of stories waiting endless creation by engaged viewers.