She Cannot Make

Because I do this process so often, make faces out the stuff I see while walking the dogs, I’m always ruminating over where “art” comes from? I make the faces quite fast, acting on impulse to see what will happen. Outside of the impulse, there are no premeditated ideas. The faces are so surprising to me. Even after all this time, they continue to be new and mysterious. I am convinced it’s because I am “drawing” with my animal senses and not with my intellect.

My intellect wants to convince me this is wrong, that what I am doing can’t possibly be intelligent (meaning good?) if she is not involved. She’s pretty convincing and I sort of believe her except the evidence supports a different conclusion. I am so used to thinking that intellect is intelligence. But there is a nonverbal intelligence at play here. I think that is really why I do this, to interact with this nonverbal form of intelligence. To see if I can get better at using it. To learn from it. 

I don’t think I would want that form of intelligence to balance my check book but that’s not the point. I am not trying to get better at this so I can submit all our concerns over to sensory perception. But for art making, I can’t help but wonder if intellect can only use what intellect already knows. She’s good at analysis but not good as life force. She can’t make things come into being. She can only evaluate, categorize, critique, imitate and replicate. But she cannot make.

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