writing journal entry #21 02/07/12 (476 words)
“What Have You Done?”
You could step right through it, like Alice in wonderland chasing the white rabbit, you too could disappear into those colors. You’ve seen this scene at least twenty times before, but something about this one strikes you. It could be the way the rabbit knowingly smirks at you, he knows you wish the world was painted with colors like these. It could be the way the golden ceiling glimmers with pride, not like any ceiling you’ve ever seen anywhere, this one purports to be within some fantastical castle where it watches kings being lorded. It lights up boldly, reflecting the same jubilation within the eyes of children who must scramble to it daily, guiding sluggish parents who have forgotten what that was like.
As you approach you notice the painting is completely done with pencil and brush, betraying expectations of what seemed to be a digital image. You realize the painting is larger than you, further beckoning you with portal like qualities, you swear that in the distance you can hear eerie carnival music. The perfectly blue sky echoes with the sound of a cloudless sunny day on the beach, there are children screaming and roller-coasters rumbling deafeningly loud on their paths, there are seagull caws piercing the air….or is that the exhibit to your left that loops a movie of birds?
Within the confines of an almost completely abandoned Insane Asylum there still exists this tiny glimmer of madness. It sits there challenging reality only just the slightest bit. On first glance you think “oh look a carousel” but then the details begin popping out at you the longer you stare, the longer they stare back at you. There are candy canes floating in the air, there are hearts gallivanting about as if gravity is a game, the alligator isn’t connected to the ride but is instead crawling closer to bite you. A dragon is staring you down from the back of the ride daring you to not take him seriously.
The painting challenges you now. Is this a world you want to enter? This world that reminds you of your childhood, that makes you hear sounds, that holds angry predators, that laughs at physics? It causes you to question your sanity, how could you have thought it was anything but a painting? How could you have not noticed the impossibilities within it? This painting is crazy. Crazy and beautiful. Perhaps, you wonder to yourself, that in a way madness is beautiful in it’s own way. You did want to step into that world, and only when you realized your ignorance could you pull away, and then you realize that is exactly what separates you from both madness and from your childhood.
You have forgotten what it was like to revel in unabashed insanity.
