But without pain there can be no "Real"ity

I've been thinking about the merit of The Limits of Love project, what its point or purpose is. Is it simply to expose the pain we inflict on each other? Is it only to detail the terrible way we treat our brothers and sisters, to memorialize rotten human behavior?
I am wondering about exploring redemption. If this life is so full of malice, so void of grace, what is the point or the purpose of living at all? Why not end it now, end it before it gets worse...?
Because there is hope for meaning, I suppose. Because redemption, that moment or point of action when life becomes meaningful on a much more profound level than I can understand - I suppose that is what keeps us all going. Hope for something better, need for something bigger.
I am reminded of the story of The Velveteen Rabbit. For those of you who don't know the story it goes something like this: The Velveteen Rabbit is a present for the Boy one Christmas. The Boy loves him with all his might for about an hour or so, until Aunt and Uncle arrive for dinner. Rabbit is then forgotten, put in the toy chest with all the other toys the Boy has no use for. Eventually, though, the Boy loses his favourite stuffy and Nurse pulls out Rabbit to replace it. At first the Rabbit is scared, the Boy reluctant to love him, but soon they form a bond and Rabbit goes with the Boy everywhere. The wise old skin-horse tells Rabbit about the process of becoming "Real"; when all your fuzz is loved off, when your eyes are scratched or cloudy, certainly long past your newness, so soft and pure, has worn away - when you are barely recognizable at all - then the Nursery Fairy will appear and do her magic, turn you into a "Real" living being, so you can participate fully in the joys (and sorrows too) of this world.
The Velveteen Rabbit lives a good life with the Boy, playing and loving together. The Boy becomes ill with Scarlet Fever, however, and the Rabbit stays with him, fears for his own survival too - if the Boy dies, how can he himself be "Real"? The rabbit's existence is perilously dependent on the Boy. The Boy survives, but the doctor orders all his clothes, linens and toys be burned to destroy any remaining infection. The Rabbit is thrown out with the trash...it seems he won't become "Real" after all; all his love, his suffering, his giving and needing have been meaningless.
But then a miracle occurs. The Nursery Fairy appears and grants this wish to the Rabbit, and suddenly, the worn out dirty stuffy is a beautiful, living rabbit! It takes him awhile to get used to his new body, for the other rabbits to recognize him, but in the end he is as real as can be. He hops away, starting his new life in the forest, never forgetting the boy but moving into a bigger life.

This story is a shining example of the Christian idea of redemption. Striving, always searching for meaning, for love, for Real-ness. All our soft fur gets "loved off", our eyes become scratched and cloudy, our newness wears away so fast we wonder if we ever really were clean. It takes an outside magical source to transform us. It takes faith in something seemingly impossible for it to happen; the Rabbit, after all his living and loving, was still thrown in the trash. But he nevertheless believed, and the Fairy, seeing his faith, granted him freedom and life. The Fairy offered redemption.

So what then, is the redeeming quality of this project, The Limits of Love? Is it worth chronicling the ways we hurt each other without offering some sort of hope, some form of redemption? Probably not a happy ending, this is true...but within my images, my stories in colours, there must be that seed of possibility. There must be the possibility for redemption...for the victim and the victimizer.

Secret keeper

Today i was humbled and honoured to receive my first story about the Limits of Love. It's well written, raw and real. It's a strange thing, being privy to a person's inner demons...I feel I have an awesome responsibility now to represent this person's pain as individual, yet universally experienced. I want the viewer to be captured by the image of perhaps a pinhole camera, draw them in and once you look closer, you can see both the text and the beauty that flourishes among the barrenness. Maybe a monochromatic, pale heart, surrounded by exploding colour and life, only a hint of which touches the interior of this heart. One thing is for sure; I most definitely like working cooperatively to form an image. I thank this person for their words; I will treat you gently.

Considering I am brand new to this blogging thing, please forgive any transgressions I may unknowingly make. I have no news for the day, except I composed a letter of expression of interest for the owner of Old Tyme Antiques, a shop on the north side that I have approached about borrowing a Victorian pie crust table from Maria's production of "Aunt Judy". I really enjoy this gig, unpaid though it is. I'm excited to see the show.

I also sent off an image of previous work to the editor of HERE magazine, for publication in the Art Listings section. The listing is for Limits of Love. Here's the thing: I felt I should quickly throw together some new collage on this theme, so the image and the listing matched up. I took a chance and showed it to an artist friend and asked for honest feedback...I'm glad I did. Not only did I junk that collage, but our conversation spun me off in a new (and hopefully better) direction. That is one of the primary elements I miss from art school: critique. Sounds crazy, I know. Everyone hates those horrendous, torturous public crits at the end of a project, or end of term. I don't miss the formal evisceration, but I do miss the interaction with other artists that can help crystallize or catalyze new ideas. So thank you to Melissa, NSCAD grad of classic rendering. I will be calling on you again to give it to me straight.

On the subject of the Limits of Love work, I have to say it's still all in my head. I mean, I'm kind of stuck. There are some pretty cool images floating around my head but I have no idea how to create them on paper. Well, that's not entirely true...it's just that the things I'm picturing would require a lot more time, money and planning than I have done at the moment. More photography, with that macro lens I don't have. Stretching bread dough between his hands, pulling it tight so it is translucent and fragile. Twisted up pages of the Bible, shaped into a heart form, photographed and how and where does the story go? A large heart organ being manipulated into a square box, portions squeezed and indecipherable. But how do I translate that to paper? That's my problem: translating what I see onto paper.