Fiction is eternal; reality perishes.

24 Aug

dear friend

“Fiction is eternal; reality perishes. Invented forms live; real ones vanish. Truth is ephemeral; illusion, everlasting.” — Jiri Krasek Ze Lvovic

i could not remember where was the location of the scene i was painting, and i wanted to understand how my memory of a place operates. we first went to cheslen preserve and then to strouds preserve.

first stop, cheslen preserve. nope, the location for that large painting was not in cheslen. although i did do a painting on this location a few years ago. in my line of sight for the painting that day, i think there were a few trees or tall scraggly shrubs and vines in the field, but today a single tree surrounded by a field of wild grass. nothing stays the same.

second stop, strouds preserve. as we approached the location where i had painted the scene that day also a few years ago, i realized how much has changed. again, nothing stays the same.

i also realized that i had unconsciously edited out or added in elements on my plein air painting that day. i don’t remember why i did what i did. i apparently had unconsciously chosen to see what i wanted to see and ignore what i wanted to ignore to make my painting work. it wasn’t reality that i was after, but a sense of the place.

now that i am on site, i realized that i have left out some elements or added in some elements to my large painting. i wondered what i shall do. nothing. i feel that my notan (light-dark balance) is working and i will try to stick with it.

if i had wanted a copy of the scene, i would have taken a photo, printed it, and framed it. alas, even a photo is an illusion or fiction. what the viewer may not see outside of the frame may perhaps be a mess of litter or a mound of rotting carcasses. a painting, a photograph, a sculpture, or a story is illusional and fictional. in every truth, there is an element of an illusion or a fiction.