fourworlds

Although it is said that every picture tells a story, the truth is that images merely provide the raw material upon which our minds create the narratives. Humans are story-making creatures. We compulsively and continuously infuse stories into the raw data of our sensory experience. On an experiential level, we live as much within a world of our self-created narrative as we do within the physical universe. Our very identity is developed and sustained by the stories we’ve created within our own minds and those we’ve internalized from our family, friends and culture. To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, “We shape our stories and thereafter our stories shape us.”

For the last couple of years, I’ve experimented with avatar identity as a means of deconstructing the process of fictional “reality-creation”. Over the last few months, I’ve been drawn to using dolls, dummies and other character-based figures for that same purpose. Even though my daughter makes fun of the Barbies in my closet, I’m planning to focus artistically this year more on the physical than the virtual and will share that aspect of my work here.

If you’re interested in a more academic approach to the role of story in human psychology, please consider reading “The Science of Stories: An Introduction to Narrative Psychology” by János László. I’m only a quarter of the way through the book and it already has a porcupine-worthy amount of post-it markers sticking out along the perimeter.