Word of the Week - 23

All art today by Francoise de Felice.

Word of the Week:  CHIMERICAL

As my art for the past 20 years has been primarily involved with designing rubber stamps, there have been, of necessity, lines around everything I do.  Recently my thoughts, and heart, have shifted to a more chimerical presentation.  I have a deep hunger for what is more flowing, more created of smoke, of vapor, of what may be at least partly imagined, of dreams.  As I fall asleep, I imagine paintings as yet non-existent, yet distinct enough to be seen by the mind's eye.

The art of Francoise de Felice, which I found just a few weeks ago, is the manifestation of what seemed too ethereal to become solid matter.  That her images are women, the women we may be in our own memories or dreams, the embodiment of the numinous with which we seek enduring connection, draws me even more fully into this world, a world I know though I cannot say from where, or when.

In the process of maturing or evolving or being prodded into consciousness I feel we are asked to fall in love with ourselves as we never have.  The scenes, the groupings which de Felice brings to full, robust, soft and not-quite-solid life give me the sense of seeing a self that is at once idealized and yet authentic.  Her women are dimensional in a way that seems to have little to do with day-to-day experiences of hacked passwords, overdue medical procedures, ants in the kitchen, as though they have found the secret to existing outside the limitations of time, space and what is expected of the rest of us.  They inspire me about my work, they make me feel illuminated from within rather than standing in some external spotlight whose glare is just too harsh.  If I am one of them, I am not just shadows, lines, creases and age.  I am timeless, I am beauty, I am depth and I am not too late for anything that matters.  Though they, in their softness, may seem chimerical, they are the reality in which I choose to believe, the world I prefer to inhabit.  Perhaps some illusions are actually life affirming.  I believe these are.