This essay is part of a continuing meditation on meaning in the arts.
Everyone has
seen photo-mosaics – and many have made them these days – those fascinating
works in which hundreds of small images are arranged so that, when seen all
together, they form another, conglomerate image. Hundreds of images of birds
can combine into the image of another, larger bird. Hundreds of faces or
figures can be combined to show almost anything.
In this same
way, the arts are a mirror held up to humanity. All our works, taken together,
combine to show us what and who we are. The more works we have, the higher the
resolution of the resultant ‘image.’
We may not
like or appreciate some part of what we are seeing. Some of the smaller,
contributing tiles in the mosaic may seem dull or unappealing, or even
displeasing. But imagine if we disliked the color gray and therefor removed all
the gray tiles from a mosaic, leaving white plaster in their place – how the
image would be distorted, blotched and speckled.
Who wants a
mirror all blotched and speckled because we block out the parts of our own
image we find displeasing? That is to say, every artist, every voice, has
something to contribute to a larger truth and we are better off looking for
where these contributions best fit than we are in denying them a place.
1 comments:
Well said. As writers we do indeed hold up that mirror to life--both the beautiful and the dark. They're all part of life, and thus worthy of examination by the writers who tell all of life's stories.
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