From my notebook: Key West March 2013

Since being a young music student I was fascinated with Russian musicians, writers and poets. From the decibel bursts of Stravinsky and Mussorgsky to the emboldened words of Pushkin and Dostoevsky. Since then I abandoned the violin for being hopelessly mediocre at it but I could never abandoned the education it gave me. Once you have peeked into the soul of the Russian arts it seems to have permanently nested in the branches of you mind.

Images in “Sculpting in Time” of scenes of Andrei Rublev

One of my biggest influences is that of filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. If you are an artist that values the ethical and moral path of being a creative you only need to watch Andrei Rublev to obtain understanding what art should truly be about. Tarkovsky states: “An artist never works under ideal conditions. If they existed, his work wouldn`t exist, for the artist doesn`t live in a vacuum. Some sort of pressure must exist. The artist exists because the world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn`t look for harmony but would simply live in it. Art is born out of an ill-designed world. This is the issue in Andrey Rublyov” (1969). This idea ties in with Leo Tolstoy’s’ believe in what is good art – that for the sincere artist art is a great matter, not a pleasure, not a solace or an amusement but that it should be respected as the organ of human life.

I will be visiting Russia next month and I can only hope for the art muse to await me…

Keep awake, keep awake, artist,
Do not give into sleep…
Your are eternity’s hostage
And prisoner of time.

~ Boris Pasternak