Thursday, September 18, 2014

The Questions Of An Idle Mind: Ah Mystery!

"Between Worlds" by Jim Carpenter, Acrylic on Crescent Board, 20" x 28" 

Dreamers "are told to start living in 'the real world.' We might ask, though: what is this 'real world,' exactly?" - Tom Hodgkinson   

Entertaining Questions


It is the dreamer who both entertains questions and is entertained by them. What does it mean to "live in the real world"? What is the real world? What is the dream world? What does it mean to be "between worlds"?

I begin with this series of questions only because I don't really want to write too specifically about the painting. I can't. It asks questions of me and suggests paths of thought for me – it prompts thinking about many things: perhaps long-held beliefs, or various states of mind, or personal history, or ancestry. Where it came from remains a mystery to me, but I sense that it is the stuff of dreams I have not yet unravelled. 

I love a mystery. It is mystery after all that keeps one locked into the quest. And as long as there is a quest there will be questions to entertain.


"Between Worlds" is painting #18 in the 30 Day Challenge. All of these paintings are on my website, Jim Carpenter Fine Art, in one gallery, "On Being Idle."  I hope you will stop by and look at the Idle paintings as well as my other works.  

4 comments:

  1. The darkest part of us. The fear, the hatred, the envy. The part most of us keep buried.
    The enlightened, the seeking, the thirst for growth, collaboration, knowledge, acceptance.
    The eternal struggle of each soul. Those scratches in black speak volumes....

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    1. Yes, this one felt pretty good in the making. I especially like that dark figure - although I don't see the negative forces in it that you mention - but, that doesn't mean they aren't there!

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