When I feel at risk I often focus on those things that feed my insecurity. The same is true for groups as for myself. If someone acts against me, or seems to oppose me, I will inflate their smallest action that supports my view, past and present. I can all too easily think a person is bad, a people, wrong.
With any group of humans there is art, music, dance. As I gaze upon the art of a person or a people, art becomes my memory, the footprint of their life, their lives. Art shifts my position of hostility.
I work on images that emerged from my visit to the wooded area I spoke of yesterday. I find and feel nature as immeasurably powerful. I experience its strength to transform my inner world.
My hope is that expressing the beauty of nature gives pause and provides a context for reflection in times of careless impulse.
Not fifteen minutes walk from my home there is a young copse full with rust-red aspen trees that reach tall and skyward. Close by, as I look towards the low strong sun of a spring day, two roe deer graze.
In my work I try to advocate peace and argue against violence and war. Most often I will express my views indirectly as many dismiss pacifism as naive and ineffectual. These are the very people I wish the body of my work to reach most, and so I tread carefully as in a copse of crisp dry leaf and deer.
William Shakespeare
A place where one fresh thought is presented every day.
Think This Today is the creation of Mike de Sousa, an artist, writer, and composer.