without quotation marks

Carrie Klukas' beautiful Untitled Diptych
from the Prairie North Creative Residency, 2007. Acrylic on masonite.

I was talking with artist and friend Carrie Klukas yesterday, about our sense that a subtle shift is happening in the art world around us, within us. I’m writing poetry again, after about a 20 year hiatus. She’s submerging sonnets between layers of paint in her latest works, allowing bits of text to surface where they will. It seems like it’s okay to talk about love again without quotation marks. Without irony. Without cynicism.

Is it okay, then, to talk about beauty too? Is it okay to make artwork that reaches out to people on a human level, that seeks to make a connection with another human being? That tells a story? That evokes an emotional response, not just a cerebral one? That is visceral?

Art that doesn’t require an instruction manual because it speaks the language of the human heart?


See more of Carrie's art at http://www.carrieklukas.com.