ONE YEAR OF CELESTE, TOGETHER

You can teach many things, but the most important things, the things that matter most, can not be taught, it can only meet.

(Oscar Wilde)


And in a year, it is a leap year or not (this in 2013 it was not, at least not in terms of timing, because the rest of grits there has trimmed in abundance... and not just a political one!), you can make a thousand matches, which can more-or-less change your life in a more-or-less definitive, or about. No one teaches anyone anything. Unfortunately or fortunately. At least no one (should) points highlight the need to do so. There are meetings to reveal how the world works and how people act. It all happens as a result. Inevitable, sooner-or-later.
In these last days of 2013, looking forward to a more hopeful and prosperous 2014, I affront, seriously, the usual year end. Shooting the sums of the first year of Celeste. And I make a general inventory of what I had and it happened, what I have left, and what is gone... or that I let go.
I walked on tiptoe to the house of Celeste, perhaps skeptical about the usefulness of social networks in the daily life of each of us, and with a little of hesitation I started to sit down in the mega virtual living room of Celestini. I looked a bit around, before you take any step. I remember that I spent a month of searching before I decided to enroll in: I wanted to understand how it worked "mechanism", and not just because I was prevented from technologically, despite my young age that "should" see me cognate with the super technology social!
Once you sign up... like you always do in the new groups (and in this I'm not so good... and I work on for years... but as they say more: I promise to do better, waiting for the redemption), I attempted to approach him. Being careful to try not to be intrusive and/or out of place. If I was, was due to a clumsy and awkward attempt to overcome perennial that moment of fear, alas.
And slowly I melted. I started to talk to people, before artists, and their way of understanding art. To deal with various themes and disparate, and confront their (YOUR) valuable points of view.
I re-evaluated, the better, and to my amazement, the concept of abstract and conceptual art , contemporary/modern, and, in short, everything that is not closely related to the figurative. On the other hand I also found that the unknown race that struggles to keep its place balance in the art, nowadays, we have become our own that we are delighted with the figurative. If once the new artists of the abstract and the "non-figurative" struggling to gain acceptance because they had dared to undermine the sanctity of figurative perfection. Today is our figurative to be almost obsolete. Already seen. Beautiful, perfect, but expressionless. Because it has all been said before, and has no hidden signs to interpret. So boring. Oh God, points of view! If I think of all the work and the mental ruminations I do to construct stories through my paintings... I would challenge anyone to say that there are four figures placed without head or tail. Without an excess of modesty and presumptions, for charity, but, well... (Guys, I've got to defend the loaf, do not you think !).
I lived on my skin (like most of you all) what it means to an art event, live, participate, sweat efforts, savor the joys and sorrows (as in a chess game with life: the right move following a possible victory; with a wrong move you risk the failure. Though not necessarily the game is lost).
I understand the difference between the investment of time and money, and do not always make a profit... A look at some good deals to be accepted and to evaluate more carefully the other prematurely rejected. I do not know if I fully understand how to discern the opportunities from disappointments. I rely on a little common sense of the people and I hope I do not fall for it with all the shoes.
I publicly exposed, sometimes too much, outperforming incredibly my shyness. And in that case I'm wrong, risking a complaint. But as I have publicly made amends for "my sins". And I avoided my head and roll down to capitulate. It is also true that I risked the same thing (the complaint) for unsaid words, but only imagined and/or presumed. But even in this I take all the responsibility I had been more clear and direct than I would have avoided me in the foot alone. My friends are prone to imperfection. And, for give me some cool tone, on the topic of art, I would say that is not my fault, I'm just drawn that way!
In short, I spent in the "much" better or "little" bad (but it really was not that bad as to be irremediable. Anyway, not bad enough to not be an experience that should be experienced, regardless), a year full and intense.
But most of all, I admit that I opened up a whole new world that was unknown to me. Academic studies – those few facts, belonging to a more or less forced compulsory schooling – had not taught me the human side of art, because as I already said more about: no one teaches anyone anything. Yet I have learned so much from you. Have you contributed, all, some more and some less, to strengthen my artistic world. It seems unnecessary and excessive, but this experience of Celeste, with you, Celestini, has enriched me a lot, and if some money is gone, patience, is for the good of the economy, which should turn proliferate and – some would say.

The time invested was done with pleasure. Every single word of appreciation has had its value, at the time, and continues to have it, regardless (for some), and if it's been said, I did it with full knowledge of the facts, and with heart, and not at all artfully constructed, to conquer some kind of merit. Also for all those with whom, for one reason or another, at some point of our interesting artistic journey, we found ourselves in disagreement, leading us to marry philosophies are diametrically opposed. And in some cases invalidating, and I assume my sins, even the friendship that was being built. Or at least establishing. But the way things are. And sometimes, perhaps, it is better that way. I'm not good with relationships that are carried forward from previous and/or passed.
And anyway, do not regret anything I've done, for better or for worse, as we said before.

One thing I would say: THANK YOU.
Thank you all friends of Celeste.
Everyone without distinction.
For the words, experiences, gestures... for your humanity! I really learned a lot... meeting you, some physically, others virtually, others by phone.
Happy new year!
And yet... I hope to spend so much time together... so maybe the next 100 years.
A hug from the heart to all of you. With respect and affection.

Erin Polla