Painting flowers can be frustrating sometimes. One night I started a project on very fresh flowers and the next day they were all facing downward. We often hear the phrase 'still life' to refer to certain works of art. Still life, according to my uneducated interpretation, has one characteristic - staged and unchanging. The image is maintained.
Still life is meant to be still. However, in the case of making art using things that are organic (living matter) there is no such thing as still life. My art is currently focused on botanical subjects, in other words- perishables. Assuming that lighting is a controlled factor, my reference fruits and flowers are never still. They change, the flowers droop and loose petals, the fruits get spots and they shrivel a little more everyday, the leaves dry out and curl, seedpods crack open and burst, etc. Not that these are all negative occurrences - no in fact they display very interesting, uncommon and sometimes even more beautiful form. All these observations happen on my drawing/painting table on a daily basis. Therefore, it is fair to say then that there is no such thing as still life. Still life is an anachronism. Life can't be still. Only lifeless things can be still. This is not a new revelation or discovery because it has always been that way. Rather it is a matter subversion. :)
Well then, let me take this opportunity to digress. Life is never still. Life is timed. Time dictates the movement of life and man cannot do anything about that. King Solomon in his God-given wisdom understood this dance between life and time when he wrote the third chapter of Ecclesiastes.
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
~~ Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
"He has made everything beautiful in its time." (v. 11) But we, in our natural mind, desire to preserve specific moments of this life. When we're having fun, when we're experiencing glory, when we have a lot of money, when the people around us are accepting, when we're healthy, when they are healthy, when we're skinny or when our skin is tight and elastic :) we want to freeze it. We strive to keep it that way - like a still life where the only change is the accumulation of dust. But alas, we do not control life. Life is timed. There is a time for everything and therefore laughter cannot take the time allotted for weeping. God obviously designed life so that we get the total package of experience. It is a test we all have to take. What then can we do? "There is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot..." (v. 22) We are left to deal with our attitude towards everything under the sun.
Going back to art now, 'still life' can still be achieved by faking the effect of time on a perishable subject. A quick snap shot preserves the image. In life, we can file those memories that we like to keep. And even though we cannot linger on one enjoyable segment, the memory of it might remind us that time keeps a tight schedule and that the next segment might be different but equally beautiful.
Life is never still. Life is timed.
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