L E S T O N P E C K
ABOUT THE ART
My art is about human nature as it becomes entangled in history, politics, religion, war, sex, money, violence and technology. The source of all of my artwork comes from unbidden images, arriving through one of four channels: dreams, touch, music, or literature. Words and images are mingled and appear to me as "picture thoughts," complete with image, medium, title, often with the frame, and formatted as 2-D works, 3-D works or free standing objects. The images always assign the materials and techniques. Craft is the architect.
HOPE ESCAPING MEMORY
These apparitions can arrive one at a time and linger, or accelerate by in a blink, too many to count. Sometimes it's like standing in a river of images, as a bear might, trying to catch spawning salmon in its jaws, and many of these images escape, vanish or are caught as fragments because of the time it takes for notes, sketches and titles. Some fragments are set aside because there are sketches, with no words, or titles with no images, but intriguing enough to save in hopes of receiving the missing pieces. The interval, duration, and quantity of these apparitions are not uniform, but are on-going. Un-captured images seldom reappear.
Art is the witness of time. I don't think that art is good or bad, but that art is either weak or strong. Art is the complete expression of the self, and that complete expression is dependent upon the practice of four elements: imagination, technique, craft, and determination. The purpose of art is to renew us, anneal us, and to expand the volume of the mysterious dimensions we inhabit.
Commonly we hear "there are no words for that in my language." These works are my creations for which I have no words. The title is the prologue and the image is the essay. Or like a three act play, you carry the first act with you. I show you the second. We all decide the third.
When times are bright, the artist is the shaman, the oracle and the bugle for the human heart, and when times are bleak, the artist is the oracle, the shaman and the beacon in the dense prime evil forest of human darkness. I don't know if I can become a shaman, or prove I'm an oracle, or know the fate of my art, but I am a witness to time. My work is my testament.