Welcome to the dragon's blog...
Here you will find musings on the nature of Celtic art and perhaps some insights into its power and potential. Also, like a river, expect some meandering!
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Celtic Art: Transformation and Language
by Unknown - 21:31 on 28 November 2013
The other day I was working on an inspiring and illuminating new design (see 'News' page) and had just finished for the day but it soon became apparent that there was still some of the energy of the work flowing! Speaking to a friend I said something close to: 'To reinvigorate Celtic art what we are doing is taking the language onto the tip of the present so that it can be written and express what is relevant today'.
I wrote this insight into my diary and soon after added underneath: 'What is it that transforms a language?'
This is something that has particularly interested me over the last few months - and probably longer! As a creative person and an artist, language obviously must interest me! But I don't just want to be reduced to sound bites and habitual terms...
There is the raw material of language itself and also there is the hidden (or not so hidden) impulse that shapes and informs it - giving the expression a quite peculiar and particular voice and spirit. It is this underlying creative quality of energy / intent / meaning that floods words with resonance - like a musical instrument played with skill. Quite ordinary tones or notes in music and intonations and words in speech then begin to have real interest and may take on extraordinary meaning.
It's this 'taking shape' part that intrigues me. Keeping this broader theme of language related to Celtic art I want to ask: what must we do as artists in order that new and original art is produced which has meaning for us today?
What doesn't it mean?
It doesn't mean just quoting or copying the older traditional patterns... or merely rearranging them in endless scrapbook or pastiche fashion.
If we look at it, language has interesting and mysterious origins. But do we really explore and use its potential fully? Potential means potency and promise.
In creative work - as in life - something is seeded... something begins to grow... certain forms emerge and if taken to full promise they mature deeply and there is an explosion - A flower! I see that my work must do the same. It must mirror and partake in the power and promise of nature. There must therefore be a full inner process as well as the more seen and focused on outer form and work. But the work is not just a name for a finished thing - it is about the whole nature of the creation of that thing in the world.
There is enormous potential for Celtic art to do this in very powerful, interesting and fun ways! The basic language itself is fully intact and waiting. I'd like to see more work from artists that grows from an inner original source and is taken through and explored as fully as possible. Discovery is a key part of this. If a work grows rather than being made up of parts 'jigsawed' together, it has a quite different order and quality. I haven't seen much of this kind of work and I don't think we will unlock the potency of this artform otherwise. My understanding is that we must create mirrors of the world that have a strong imaginative inner resonance. There is much work to be done!
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