What Makes Your Art Work?

Thomas Skomski

I came very close to dying in 2001. It was the beginning of the semester at DePaul University where I was teaching sculpture. I had just run up the stairs instead of the elevator, walked into the Art office and passed out. As I gradually regained consciousness I discovered a group of my colleage standing over me saying he had a stroke. This was not possible but I couldn’t move. All I knew was that I narrowly avoided death. I experienced sliding down some kind of tube where I had my arms and legs extended as far as possible trying to slow the slide to oblivion. After spending 6 weeks in hospital and upon my release I knew I wanted to get out of the city. My wife and I moved to a small farm in central Illinois.

Living in nature changed my art. I was affected by much more than the physical beauty. The proximity to a multitude of animals dying from large to small cut to the bone. I did not grieve for them but rather came to perceive myself as another animal heading down the same path. Since childhood I thought of dying as something that happened to old people. The virus also put an end to that misperception. Now my challenge became how and why do I make art with this new world view starring me in the face. I want to thank my wife, who introduced me to Wallace Stevens whose remarkable words gave me comfort. “Death is the mother of Beauty” I’m certain I could not have agknoweledged the truth of those words without my devastating experience. I began to see matter very differently. Now the detritus that washes up when we flood is redemptive. Large rotten logs or slabs are beautiful. The permanence of Impermanence rocked my boat and I began to understand the Mexican day of the dead ritual. But where is the beauty? Perhaps merely creating a space that allows us to experience our own vulnerability is a step in the right direction.