Life is not still

I have always been fascinated by still life paintings. They capture a very small moment in time when it appears that all life is standing still. However, that is totally not the case. Even as the artist is painting the piece, the fruit is decaying, changing, oxidizing, breaking down into all of it’s varying chemical parts until it is eaten, or thrown back into the grand.

We look at still lives as if they capture a moment. But even within that moment, the subject or subjects have changed significantly. It is as if we want to believe there is some part of life that is free from time. Sadly, this is, as is most art, only an illusion lulling us into a false sense of security. We overlook the dynamics of the world around us. We toss around words like ‘change’ and ‘status quo’ as call to actions or weapons to hurl, when in fact that change is happening whether we want it to or not.

Just a thought.