Salvador Dali
I have a large coffee table book of Salvador Dali paintings. My entire living room is decorated around it. It is what moves me. However, with a two year old walking around vandalizing everything in her wake I had to put it away and it now lives underneath my bed. I’m a person heavy into symbolism– and I do believe that at that time I had also put away a large part of myself. To stand out from others, even at my age, is tiring. It is exhausting to constantly fight just to be yourself.
My annual celebration of Dali week, of course seems silly to most and is strange indeed, but opening up old books and viewing art that takes my breath away reminds me why I’m alive. It is a very personal thing for me that I choose to share because I believe creativity and art is a gift to the world. We cheapen words with biased interpretations, we prostitute visual art to the highest bidder, and taint our music to feed the mindless masses. I don’t want to be told what to do, I just want to feel.
“Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in Their Arms Skins of an Orchestra”, 1936.
Salvador Dali was able to transfer emotion onto the canvas. Most of my favorite pieces summon dark emotion in me…such as the melancholy that often comes with the desire to create. Dali was loved for his outrageous persona, and praised for his art but in the end was clearly misunderstood and written off as crazy by most. Which goes to show that sometimes people take from others what they want but often won’t accept or appreciate the whole.
“The Burning Giraffe”, 1937.
Through my obsessive love for Dali I’ve learned to appreciate it all. People will bleed you dry, extracting your talent from you and leaving your core to be eaten by the judgmental wolves that attack what they don’t understand. I have a fascination and love for Dali the artist, the madman, the elitist, the intellectual and it is a mirror for how I choose to love and accept others. This is what moves me.
“Sleep (Le Sommeil)”, 1937.
I celebrate Dali week each year to motivate others to find their own inspiration. Hold fast to whatever inspires you in the world of art and creativity. The world is damning enough and it’s totally ok to seek refuge and to be influenced by reality and people who are just as imperfect as you. It is ok to allow the creativity of others to be your life’s muse.
To my favorite muse, Señor Salvador Dalí, happy birthday.
“The Persistence of Memory”, 1931.
