Perfectly Incomplete
First you are a gardener. You create within yourself an environment friendly to creation. Into this garden will come something akin to a flower. It will be different, just as every sunflower in a garden of a thousand sunflowers is different, and it will be perfect. It will be perfect exactly as a flower is perfect, which blooms within a realm where the concept of comparison simply does not exist. This is the root of its perfection. Yet only you can perceive it. Moreover, you are used to knowing life as something you can see and touch and smell. This is where you have been taught to measure something’s value. And so you become a painter. Since no one can see this perfect flower, you will render it, translate it.
You set to work. Maybe you paint it realistically, rendering the color and petals and height precisely. Or maybe you render it impressionistically, forgoing all this detail in favor of the pursuit of the feel of the flower. No matter your approach, all your efforts seem incomplete compared to the flower itself.
And yet you love this painting all the same. You love it for how it reminds you of the flower you perceived. And sometimes another person loves it too. It is hard to know precisely why they love it, as they have not seen the original. It is then you come to understand that what you could not capture, what you felt was missing, is in fact the space that allows another person to enter your painting. In this way, what you could not render is perfect too. In this way, the perfection you sought exists not in the painting itself, but in the sharing, the moment where every creation is finished.
If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual and group conferencing.
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You can find Bill at: williamkenower.com
