In my reading the past few weeks, I have been seeking encouragement, uplift, inspiration, perhaps even permission. Nothing fits. Nothing helps. Today, I found this quote by abstract artist Lawrence Calcagno:
"As an artist, it is central to be unsatisfied! This isn't greed, though it be appetite."
I love this quote. I'm in feeding mode!
Unsatisfied with the short biography of Calcagno I read, I did a little more digging. I discovered that Calcagno was a great friend of artist Beauford Delaney, a talented African-American abstract artist who began his career at the end of the Harlem Renaissance.
Still unsatisfied, I dug into Delaney's story.
Delaney's story led me back to that of James Baldwin--everything that leads back to the great James Baldwin is good. Baldwin was a great admirer of Delaney. In a 1965 essay, Baldwin wrote:
"I learned about light from Beauford Delaney, the light contained in every thing, in every surface, in every face . . .though black had been described to me as the absence of light, it became very clear to me that if this were true, we would never have been able to see the color, black: the light is trapped in it and struggles upward, rather like that grass pushing upward through the cement. It was humbling to be forced to realize that the light fell down from heaven, on everything, on everybody, and that the light was always changing. Paradoxically, this meant for me that memory is a traitor and that life does not contain the past tense: the sunset one saw yesterday, the leaf that burned, or the rain that fell, have not really been seen unless one is prepared to see them every day."
I'm sure my search will begin anew tomorrow: encouragement, uplift, inspiration. For now, I am sated.
