Believe it or not, the person who I feel most influenced me to become an artist is Ludwig van Beethoven. I was learning about him whilst studying abroad in Vienna my sophomore year at Wake Forest, and found myself completely moved not only by his compositions, but by his personal story as well. It was not really that he was deaf as much as it was that he nearly gave up on life all together. Can you imagine a world without Symphony No. 5 in C Minor? It struck me that I related so much to Beethoven, because although I have no expectation to ever become as famous or influential as he, I was at the time really struggling with the decision of what I wanted to do with my life between doing what I felt I was totally called to do and doing something else. My "something else" was not anything remotely similar to suicide, as was Beethoven's consideration, but it doesn't even matter what it was now that I've abandoned it for my passion. Of course, this is still a struggle I face daily as there are always other things to do besides make art, but nevertheless, it is a life decision I have rested on. So, to the point, I was reminded of all of this as I saw an article, or slideshow, rather, of visual artwork made by blind artists. I liked most of what I saw, but some of it simply did not seem to me like it possibly could have been made by someone without sight. What do you think?
2 comments:
Do you happen to have a link to this slideshow? We're actually talking about art and sight and the way blind people experience art in my literary theory class (sounds unrelated, but somehow it's connected to poetry???)
Lydia, I'm so sorry that I didn't see & respond to your post sooner! Here it is: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/11/29/arts/20091129-blind_index.html
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