Monday 12 December 2011

The secret of life is in art

More Oscar Wilde.

Some Caroline Coxon - how life-affirming art can be and I want to know why. Not why in general, but why a particular piece of art grabs me by the throat and the heart and the soul and makes me feel ALIVE. Dangerous territory. Welcome, amateur psychologists everywhere.

This is the piece that did it, discovered by accident yesterday when I was looking for Andrew Wyeth images.


It's called 'Winter is coming, dear Red Riding Hood,' and it's by an artist called Daria Kudla.

 She was born in Poland in 1982, lives in Berlin, where she also works as a technical translator AND, in her profile she writes, "I love spending free time with horses and poetry, " - so she must be okay. Anyone who spends time with horses invariably IS. In fact, here is her self portrait:



 ...but it's the Little Red Riding Hood I love, above all. Why? I suppose apart from the beauty of the image, it's the subverting of a fairy tale - something which I've just done with the same story (mine's called There is no wolf) The wolf as victim, as heroine, as protectoress...


I hope I can buy a print.

And now I have TWO dreams. That There is no wolf  is taken up by a publisher and that Daria Kudla will be commissioned to illustrate it.

And this has always been a favourite quotation of mine (by George Bernard Shaw):

“You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?'”

Why not?

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