The Big Dig
You are an architect
You are hired to design and build a library for a Norwegian law school. You study usage, weather, utilities, drainage, street access, ordinances, the environment, local politics, budgets.
If you are a Digital Giraffe, you don't start with a Purpose. You start with a Passion.
Your goal is to strip your mind of demands, rules, necessities, criticisms, inhibitions.
You dig deep inside for voices that clamor to be heard. As an image junkie, with almost half a century of digital sketches on hand, you surround yourself with images. You may draw on them, sculpt them, combine them, upend them. You will demand of them, and of yourself, a rigorous infusion of innovation and experimentation.
You shut out the world around you and enter a white space where anything is possible, where the unusual is welcomed, where you taste the weird and strange without judgement.
You save, return, improve.
Repeat.
You are a weaver. You gather threads of being to weave a tapestry of possibilities.
Are they real?
Yes...and no.
They are real because they exist, waiting for you to find them, to give them a visual presence.
They are not real, because you cannot see them outside your window.
You are a Digital Giraffe, a weaver, an illusionist, a dreamer who turns fiction into fact.
I am reminded of The Reverend Mr. Black:
"You've got to walk that lonesome valley
You've got to walk it by yourself
Oh nobody else can walk it for you
You've got to walk it by yourself." (1)
After many months, sometimes years, when the piece appears finished, when you can neither add nor take away any element, you step back and ask the work: what are you about? What are you telling me?
The reply gives a hint of the title, which you research to unearth the ramifications of what you have created.
It is a process of birth.
Of revelation.
Of wonder.
Of challenge.
You know there are endless questions.
You know there are no answers.
(1) The Kingston Trio c. Corinne Whitaker 2025 and always
front page , new paintings, new blobs, new sculpture, painting archives, blob archives, sculpture archives, photography archives, Archiblob archives, image of the month, blob of the month, art headlines, technology news, electronic quill, electronic quill archives, art smart quiz, world art news, eMusings, eMusings archive, readers feast, whitaker on the web, nations one, meet the giraffe, studio map, just desserts, Site of the Month, young at art,
want to know more about the art?
email: giraffe@giraffe.com
about the artist?
copyright 2025 Corinne Whitaker
