2003-11-26 - 8:17 a.m.

i've been heavily influenced by an article in this month's believer about the way a lot of modern fiction does not describe faces or facial expressions. these descriptions were a mainstay of literature before the advent of television. charles baxter theorizes that in a botoxed, backlit, computer-aided, and heavily commodified culture we don't trust one another's faces the way we used to. 'face value' has literally changed.

i'm painting a series of portraits right now and the article led me to think about the way many religious traditions proscribed portraiture or even the depiction of animals. image creation was considered sinful because the artist was imitating god, by creating an image of a living thing. as the tale of pygmalion (see also narcissus) warns us, humans can get confused, assign more meaning to the depiction than to the thing depicted. we fall in love with our own images.

my experience of being an artist is like falling in love a hundred times a day. i fall in love with a cloud formation, a street sign, a friend, a shade of orange, a song, a brushstroke, a scent, a turn of phrase, a chord progression, a breeze on my skin. i fall in love at the drop of a hat. my experience is also that the world is constantly breaking my heart.

a friend in california (who has now passed on) used to say this: a broken heart is the only one big enough to contain love.