Thursday, December 30, 2010

Happy New Year 2010

© D J McGarel, digital image
the last image of 2010

more of my graphics can be seen at mcgarelgraphics

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Journey Towards Fulfillment


To me, art has always been a healing process, a great way of exploring and seeking comfort. I firmly believe art expresses the artist's soul, their true being. Whether subconsciously or consciously, the artist collectively by his/her choices of colors, subject matter, composition, titling, and/or brush- stokes reveal their inner truth, whom they really are to themselves and the world. I’ve decided to name my exhibition, Journey towards Fulfillment because as we travel through life, both intelligently and spiritually we seek meaning, purpose and enlightenment, in other words, fulfillment.

In 2002, late August early September I had a near death experience. The following year, one of my first cousins whom was the same age as I died suddenly, unexpectedly. She unfortunately wasn’t given a second chance as I was and I do every once in awhile question as to ‘why, why not?’ There are some many things in life that I do question. As I grow older the questions seem to be more profound and the answers seem more distant, kind of a way elusive, far beyond my grasp I do not claim to have life’s answers nor do I claim to have all life’s questions ( I doubt being blond, I am that deep) but what I will say this for myself, I am a seeker, a seeker of the truth. I think we all are to some extent; we seek to answer life’s complex questions as to why we are here. Whether our answers come intelligently or spirituality, we all seek for the basic need to know why each one of us does exist and our role in the universe. By the way, I was just teasing about the blond comment so please don’t take it to heart.

In a nutshell, here is my art today as it stands. I am seeking truth, answers and more importantly questions to what we all face when we reach that certain age when the President discusses the older generation and we look in the mirror and comment to ourselves, ‘Oh my gosh that is me. I am now part of the older generation.’ Yes I am referring to the dreaded midlife crisis. The time in our lives where excitement lies in seeing what body part will fail apart next. And with that I will leave you to digest these current babbling as I re-write, re-work the artist statement into a more acceptable platform that will be used for one of my upcoming 2011 shows. And yes, the working title for one of my shows will be entitled, JOURNEY TOWARDS FULFILLMENT.