Embrace, by Samuel E. Burns from Chattanooga, TN

Thursday, March 10
Embrace, by Samuel E. Burns from Chattanooga, TN
I am starting to really love Linkedin. For a long time, I ignored it. Facebook and twitter and my email seemed to be enough of a social network for me. But then I started cruising around Linkedin, and found that there are many, many opportunities to link up with area artists even if you don't personally know them. Samuel Burns is an abstract sculptor and photographer working out of Chattanooga and we linked up this afternoon when I accepted his invitation.

For a long time, I didn't embrace abstract art. But then I became a jeweler and well, jewelry is really small scale abstract sculpture, isn't it? I have a good friend that is a jewelry designer, and damn good too. But she worked for a local sculpture artist and got smitten by big metal. I can understand how artists are led to other mediums once they get the hang of just one. Which proves the point in starting anything...follow that flirt and your life and experiences expand rapidly!

Just to illustrate how synchronicity works, I just finished putting up my "About" blurb on this blog banner about connecting to others, whether they are friends, family or strangers, in order to hear their stories and deepen your own understanding of creativity. In this case, a virtual stranger on Linkedin just minutes ago made me stop and consider how important abstract thought and imagery are to our understanding of emotions. Emotions are not something that have a physical form, are they. We see the results of emotions, whether it be anger, joy or love...in people (expressions of crying, laughing) or in objects (artwork) but we often have to resort to abstract visuals to convey emotion when we aren't moving through emotion ourselves.

How incredibly cool is that?