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Home
> Amazing Art: A Celebration
of Consciousness
Amazing Art: A Celebration of Consciousness
By Bill Richards, Art Studio Director, Emeritus
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Amazing Art: A Celebration
of Consciousness, was an exhibition of art works by
neighbors at Northeast Center for Special Care. It
was presented at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art,
located at SUNY New Paltz from June 4-July 20,
2001.
Amazing Art comprises sixty-five works of art, created by
twenty-six artists, along with paintings by Bill Richards and
works of photographic documentation by François
Deschamps,
photography professor at SUNY New Paltz.
We present comments authored by Art Studio Director,
Bill Richards.
Amazing
is the most commonly used word to describe the art
produced at Northeast Center for Special Care. It
is also the word I've used for many years as the
yardstick for assessing works of art to my liking and is
the criterion for how I evaluate my work. I want
to see and produce art that initiates amazement which
subsequently gets stored in my mental museum of amazing
art. The choices for my museum are delivered from
my subjective sense of amazement as a method of
identifying those works which I revere, crossing the
boundaries of time, style, historical significance and
monetary value.
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Charles J., "Tidalwave," acrylic on canvas, 20" x 16"
2001 |
What my choices have most in common are their
differences, though after scrutiny they appear to share
in expressing some urgent condition of consciousness in
a unique way. For instance, Pierro della
Francesca's Resurrection of Christ and Max
Becknam's triptych Departure, although spanning
five centuries, express through their uniqueness the
same conceptualization the exoneration of the past
through an extraordinary accomplishment. These
paintings express an emergence toward light and hope,
exhibiting a world with the possibility of overcoming
injury, death and inhumanity.
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Patricia
D., "Angel," acrylic on canvas, 30" x 24"
2000
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The spirit of these paintings, for me represents an
unsentimental solemnity that, without being overtly didactic,
teaches forgiveness and triumph over despair. These are also the teachings one derives from working
with a disables population. In silence or in
incessant chatter, with ambulation or the lack of it,
with acute cognition or its absence, the disabled,
individually and collectively, demonstrate compassion in
their courage.
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James C., "Out of Gas," acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20"
2000 |
Amazing art proceeds fro or addresses radical
change - an instantaneous alteration of self. Paradoxically, tragedy and creativity both may occur
instantly, requiring no prerequisites, only appropriate
conditions. The production of art under such
conditions gives rise to the authentic emanations of the
artists' inner lives. The result is Amazing Art,
which may be thought of as an incredible and unique
synthesis of spatial relationships that reveals
wholeness authentically, inherently ironic. Amazing Art is an assertion of the possibility of
accomplishment and the creation of beauty. the
art-making process instills a sense of meaning while
contributing to the goals of improvement and community
reentry.
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Amazing Art
exhibition at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art
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Inner life has consciousness but no form, hence the
manifest destiny with art. The formal
manifestation of consciousness by the disabled creates a
deeply meaningful reciprocity; by identifying with the
creation of wholeness in their art, they contribute to
their own healing process while simultaneously teaching
what we need to know about ourselves.
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