COMMENTARY
“The Day that I was crowned
Was like the other Days –
Until the Coronation came –
And then – ‘twas Otherwise
As Carbon in the Coal
And Carbon in the Gem
Are one – and yet the former
Were dull for Diadem –
I rose, and all was plain –
But when the day declined
Myself and It, in Mystery
Were equally adorned –
The Grace that I – was chose –
That was the Witness for the Grace –
‘Twas even that ‘twas Mine.”
- Emily Dickinson,c. 1862
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Portraits
The self or the soul. These are objectives for artists,
who must uncover their unique forms. Yet, a form also
disguises. A lifetime of artistic work will be needed
to yield the allusions and outline the truth of the
individual.
Two visual artists at Gallery 25 are sharing with
us their shadowed identities. Their works are in strong
contrast. With Anne Scheid describes female figures,
in sets of threes. Although partly obscured from one
another, each has a singular role. They roam, and
they aim toward unity, members of a single soul.
…..Since women artists have invaded, and transformed,
the masculine fortress of art, they have resisted
the labelings which isolated and stereotyped their
work. Still, women’s different sensibilities
continue to be observed, with ambivalent approval.
So what is happening in women’s search for
the inner self? Is the ground of being, for a woman,
different from the universals evolved by masculine
minds? Do the roughened, slurried edges, between figure
and ground, in the works of both these artists, allude
to feminine aspects in every individual’s Self?
Bill Viola, a master of the blurred figure and merged
media, says: “Our work today as artists is not
about describing the arrival at and possession of
a goal, but instead it is about illuminating the pathways.
It is not about a system of proofs and declarations,
but a process of Being and Becoming.”
Women, so long accustomed to avoiding disparagement
of their emotions, and then disguising their inner
lives, evolved their own channels. They subjected
these to the same disciplines as those honored in
the “finer” arts.
Now, after a very brief time in the open arena, women
fearless disclose the uncertainties, the irregularities,
and the feminine features of our common search.
- Polly Victor
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By Polly Victor
Trinity of the Self
September 2000
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