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

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

LINE on Line.com

By Polly Victor
Trinity of the Self
September 2000