Art begins with the courage to make a mark—whether that mark is made with a brush, a pen, the hand, or the click of a lens. Whatever inclination or inspiration exists, it must be partnered with courage—because that first mark is the first breath of the creation of a world-view. With that first mark we are breathing a world-view in repetition, response, or even homage to that First Breath that brought us into being.
And what then, after courage? A promise to continue with this creation until it breathes its own breath, and dreams its own dream. And then, if it is after all to be art, that breath and dream must be recognized outside its own soul, outside its own creation—it must reach out to Other. The images seen above and below are of calligraphic art by Melissa Dinwiddie, who names this world-view she created “Kinetic Metaphor: Three Alphabets of the Self.”
Using marks from the Latin-based English alphabet, the Hebrew alphabet, and the imagined alphabet of her own internal language, she has brought into being a world where there is flow rather than separation, unity rather than division. This is a place you recognize as both of humans and spirits, new to you, but instantly also about you.
The intuitive use of marks and color in this three-dimensional space allow both tactile and spiritual considerations to speak to the viewer. And even though alphabetic tools are used skillfully, we don’t want to “read” here, we want only to “listen” and “feel” as we move as in a dance through the walls and pages of this world-view.
Seen above (and on home-page mastheads): Kinetic Metaphor: Three Alphabets of the Self by Melissa Dinwiddie.