--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer" <r...@...> wrote: > > By Doug Walker (Canadian), who lives in FF: > http://www.artofmahadevi.com/index.asp > Read http://www.artofmahadevi.com/story.asp if you're interested. >
I knew Doug. Seemed like a decent guy. And I love art and people doing art late in life. I'm practically an evangelist for it. So what's my beef? All the PT Barnum hype that surrounds a guy enjoying the beginning stages of learning to paint. This inner Mother Divine angle is a shortcut to doing something profound on a canvass after mastering his craft. And that takes years and is really hard. But with his imagination in full swing during a meditation, now beginner art is being pawned off as more than that. Divinely inspired art that transcends it humble technique. Meanwhile back in the studio painters toil for years to attempt to bring a canvass to life. When you stand in front of a master's work it speaks to you for real, without the Goddess angle trying to elevate it. This is what art is about, and it doesn't come easily. Real beauty in any field of art takes time, lots of time. What I always hated about the "Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in order to play guitar as well as he did" myth, is that it shortchanges his hard work. It turns the labor of guitar mastery into magic. A quick fix instead of hours of finger numbing effort. I hope Doug lives long enough to advance his painting to a level of beauty and accomplishment that doesn't need this sales package. I've seen this before in long term meditators who have be grandiose about something that is beautiful but mundane, like taking up a hobby late in life. It has to be something connected with some profound inner experience with the people around them enabling their fantasy. Oh yeah, and I didn't miss the fact that with this magic angle, a beginning painter is able to sell his beginner paintings for money. Money that no one would give an artist at his level. Why would someone pay good money for a beginners painting? Cuz he imagined something vividly in meditation.
