Susan BIBBS - oil painter - contemporary artist
Rightside STUDIO - the creative mind - a dedicated space
A VISUAL ESSAY - AMID CHAOS, WHY ART?
- a visual essay starts with the visual work, words come much later.
- mixed medium posters 30" x 22", followed by essay
These discussions accompany the visual essay;
Amid Chaos, Why Art,
Amid Chaos
In 1990 Voyager 1 photographed Earth from 6 billion kilometers away.
The elegant spot in the deep is approximately 4.5 billion years old, built
from the left overs of our own Sun’s primordial beginnings. Crushed into
orbiting spheres, the planets were spun in the Sun’s gravitational
imperative, leaving behind rocky asteroids embedded with carbon,
metals, amino acids and ice.
It took a billion years to form Earth’s core and crust, under continuous
seeding bombardment from space, and another billion years to see the
formation of the atmosphere and the Earth’s water. Pregnant with
potential, Earth became a home sometime between 3.5 and 2.5 billion
years ago with the development of single-cellular organisms, like
bacteria, that incase a nuclei with DNA. Another billion years later the
multi-cellular experimentation began, followed with the explosion of life
forms around 600 million years ago. If we imagine a clock starting right
then, man appears at about five minutes to midnight, with the earliest
evidence of forbearer tool making dating to about 2.5 million years ago.
We are hardly even noticeable, a dot at the end of the last line of a very
long story.
Humanity’s is a story placed in ubiquitous space where supreme chance
as challenged by unique opportunity. Amid the infinite beauty of fractal
art and creation stories, we seek answers, we are story tellers and
problem solvers.
Humanity’s collective potential is embedded with the adaptive capacity
of flexible thinking, encompassing both memory and creativity. It is due
to the large numbers of neurons in our brains. As a result we ask
questions and imagine answers, looking backward and forwards to
problem solve, putting ideas into action. We follow lines of thought
provided by our ancestors for the generational evolution of culture and
the passing of knowledge. We use stars and tides to navigate the
diaspora of our group. We make tools to expand knowledge, for
exploration, to manipulate and control our environment. And we dream
with phosphenes and meditate on the mountains, and seek altered
states to manipulate the outcome of experience. We dream and we
hope and as a result we adapt to circumstances, and we survive.
Accomplishments in problem solving are registered in culture through
Art and Design. There is the art of diagnostic medicine and the art of
harvesting the thread of a silk worm’s cocoon. There is design in both
physical structures and political will. The enhanced capabilities of the
human mind also bring full awareness of the actions we take, and with
that comes the inherent responsibilities of knowledge. Abdication of
responsibility is mirrored in the purposeful dissolution of scientific
libraries coupled with the annihilation of natural ecosystems.
As Voyager 1 entered interstellar space in 2013, she took with her our
questions and our dreams. If she could turn around and take another
picture maybe we could be reminded, how fragile the space we hold,
how large the jeopardy we entertain. There is one answer, in all our
quests, that is certain; Earth is our only home.
Why Art?
The Artist’s visual image is a presentation from the preverbal mind and is fundamentally about the importance of flexible thinking.
Art is an expressed hallmark of adaptation in the human species, a physical manifestation of flexibility in thought, presented in the self expression of the individual.
Art marks the commonalities shared between all contemporary humanity with our ancient ancestors, in the neurological basis of brain functioning.
The study of Art History brings context to the progress and development of societies and culture. Contemporary Art, as an exploration by individuals, is interpretation of the lived experience of those cultures.
Art’s best outcome is problem solving on a grand scale, as art provides both structural interpretations of current events and identification of functional alternative outcomes.
Art helps achieve successful adaptation to stressful situations.
Art is both the thought before the action and the discussion after. Without Art, the joy of flexible thinking would remain within the individual. Art carries momentum of thought and provides the catalyst to build upon the action of those who came before, while creating an impetus for clarity in the unfolding events of the future.
Amid Chaos speaks to the challenge for Contemporary Art to remain a relevant tool for problem solving through flexible thinking, now when this primary function is most essentially needed.
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