"I believe in the imagination. What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see.” Duane Michals
Another quote from Duane Michals. I think I've retained a good deal of my childhood imagination--to quote a friend of mine, I feel as if I've managed to maintain a child-like sense of wonder and curiosity without having let my imagination morph into a kind of "creative sarcasm" to be employed in my current circumstances. It's the mark of an artist to be able to envision something that's never been done before, or to see something that's never been made, and then to actually go out and make it. It's the mark of a GREAT artist if what is made actually corresponds with the vision.
And art itself relies so much on what is implied. We can't see the exact lines made by a person's glance, yet we follow them. Often what makes an image so powerful to an individual is the ability it has to make the viewer imagine him or herself actually in the image, as a part of it. And an individual's interpretation as well requires the imagination to apply the image to their own life.
It is the connections made by human imagination that make any image meaningful, and in this respect, it is the unseen qualities--the implied qualities--that count for more in art than the obvious. In my experience, great art is never obvious. It takes imagination to not only make art, but view it, and gain anything from it.
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