visual language

Artists choose to communicate in a visual language, possibly because they find it hard to order their own thoughts via the written or spoken word.
(Anon.)


--What's your take on that quote?


Gutless Anonymous, that's what I say. Unless that person is also an artist, I think they're terribly presumptuous. When I communicate in visual language, it's because I've chosen to use the vocabulary of color and line and form.

In defense of Anonymous, when I enter into the visual/manual arts, I may be thinking different thoughts than when I'm tapping away merrily on my computer. But, is it because I find it hard to order 'em, or because the visual is best?

Right now, I'm thinking of a crimson arc on a bone white background, arising from just inside the lower left corner and thinning as it makes its way up to the right. It finds its own height and starts to descend--do I keep it on the canvas and have a completed act/thought/deed? Or, do I fly off the right side, who knows where, leaving a hint of where I've headed but begging the viewer to involve themselves in the not-yet-completeness?

See, Mr./Ms. Anonymous, I just painted with words. Duh. Can you see the image? I sure can...but is that at all unique or do most of you see what I just painted?

And when I'm writing, prose or poetry, how much do I leave to the reader to interpolate or extrapolate? Do I tie everything up with a pretty little ribbon and present the done deed, or do I leave strands here and there that are frankly unfinished...little dangling loose ends that, hmmm, are just like reality?