Homo Collectus

January 01, 2012  •  Leave a Comment

In meandering among and along the hills and their back routes, I've strayed across many a country auction, tractors, row upon row, engines chugging in rhythm to their proper orchestration, literally hundreds of participants there, all, seeking The piece to add to their stable of items.

   So many of us collect. Whether it be Air force paraphernalia of a certain era, or farm equipment of disparate pedigree, or Bonsai or family recipes . We as a species seem to persistently collect collections. Possibly our knowledge is just another collection, gathered up for winnowing and eventually for dispersal near the end of our years.

Regardless of our passion, we all seem to collect something or other.  Creating in the process an ensemble that speaks of the relationships within the collection rather then of any particular piece there within.

   It might even be argued, that my paintings are simply just another expression of my own passion of collectables. Maybe they are just another collection of things, some sort of grouping of moments that express the disparate ways we know of the world.  More important the relationships between those ways, rather then any one particular paradigm held within.

Are we simply gatherers? Are our galleries and museums just another expression of our agricultural harvesting blended with our hunters stalking of the next prey?    Are we and our civilizations really as sophisticated as we all hope to be?  Or might we simply be gathering the seeds we'll soon disperse to the four winds among the hills, along the byways and tall grasses. Which seeds we sow less important that we gather and then disperse the collections so they grow again for some other to harvest all over again?   (Maybe like some sort of convoluted bee plant fertilization process - we collect the nectar but spread the germination of that which we collect)

Are our art collections more about the art, or our collecting?   Is the commonality of themes in any body of art work, more significant then the isolated pieces.

 

 

 

 

 

© GAMcCullough      2012


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