Behind the Canvas

I've been going to a lot of galleries and museums lately and have been constantly thinking about art and what makes good art. I can't draw worth a lick and am a little envious of those who can. I just respect how well they can create life-life pictures on two-dimensional surfaces. Since I can't draw, I tend to focus on the why of art and about creations that don't rely how steady my hand is. Maybe it's cheating but it's how I contribute and show my creativity. One of the things I like about art is that it brings out and stimulates your imagination. I'm just as much stimulated by things of unreal beauty such as anything by Van Gogh, as I am by art that confuses me and makes me think, like Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp and more recently Bruce Nauman. I am working on a series of canvases that are blank and I place objects behind them. I include and describe the object in the listing but it's up to the viewer to picture it in their mind. Since they can't see it, they have to decide if I am telling the truth or not. They have to take my word for it. They see what may be behind the canvas and project it onto the blank front. How large is it? What color? Is it a picture, a real thing or nothing at all? A few industrious souls may attempt to shine a light through the canvas to see a shadow and get a definitive account. But how can they believe it if they don't see it. A shadow doesn't exist, you can't touch it the way a brisk fall breeze touches your face. Okay, I have to stop for now. I just crossed the self-indulgent poetic line.

Canvas face

I had this idea today and please let me know if you've heard it being done. But what I do is, I take a 12x16 canvas or maybe 16x20 and I cut holes in the middle for someone to place their face into. I cut out the eye holes, the nose area and room for a mouth. The viewer puts his face on and into the canvas and what they see when they look in well, I haven't decided. The canvas could either be set deep so that I can put a mirror in there or paint a scenery that is only viewable by them. It's a one on one piece of art. Designed to shut out the world and for however long they want, whatever I decide to put behind that canvas, is only viewable by them. I figure dozens of people see the Mona Lisa at the same time and mine would be the opposite. One viewer at a time. Whenever I am at a museum there is usually someone who spoils a nice moment for me in front of a piece. The high-school girls on their cellphones chatting next to me when I viewed Picasso's Les Demoiselles D'Avignon or the man who backed into me with his umbrella as I stared at Van Gogh's Irises. I am in no way comparing my half-cocked idea I thought of today to those two masterpieces, but I was trying to think about how one views art at a museum or gallery and how that process could be boiled down to just one viewer at a time. To shut the world out so to speak. If I work on this idea more, and there's a 45/55 chance I might, I'll be sure to put up some pictures.