So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless.
Ecclesiastes 2:17-23
Artist Statement
(and other thoughts)
I am glad you found my web site. now that you are here I hope you will take your time, and really look at each work, not just with your intellect and reason, but with your heart as well.
Within me and my work, as it is with most (if indeed not all) people there is beauty and ugliness, the divine and the profane and everything in between those extremes. The search for truth can reveal ugly, disturbing and sometimes frightening things about ourselves. Most people do not want to look within their own souls. That is why we focus most of our attention on the sins of others, rather than our own.
The work I do, I do for myself because I feel the need to. I don't claim to be a great artist or a genius. Some of my work I feel are as good as anything else I have seen, some of it is not and some of it is down right junk. What ever it is, it is my work. It represents thoughts and feelings that I wanted to express at the time. I feel embarrassed by some of my work, but I leave it on this site because at the time I did it, I needed to do it. Maybe I need to stop caring about what other people think about me; showing my embarrassing and junky stuff helps me stop taking myself so seriously. I have often wished I could give up this nonsense of being an artist and just be a regular guy with a regular job and family. Unfortunately for me however, what ever I am, it's not a regular guy.
After forty years of thinking I am an artist, I am not sure I haven't just wasted my time and life. At this stage of my life, the illusions of my youth are gone. I see the world and myself as we really are. I have always felt like an outsider, never quite able to fit in. This world seems to be one big insane asylum with the craziest people in charge of it. The ones who talk the most about intolerance are the most intolerant, the ones who talk the most about racism are the most racist, and on and on it goes.
Nothing has changed in human nature in all of recorded history. Like others, now and before me, I am trying to make some sense out of my life in this insane world. Just like the writer of Ecclesiastes my life and work is pain and grief and my mind finds no rest.
What the world does not need and I do not want to be, is another depressed artist trying to find the meaning of life. But here I am doing just that.
I am not an artist for the masses or for those who worship celebrity. So if that is what you are here for, you may as well go away now and not waste your time. I hate the business side of art because I have no talent for it, and for the most part I hate dealing with people.
One of the great things about the internet is that I can show my work and not have to deal with people.
I dedicate this web site to all individuals who thinks for themselves. Those few, who don't follow like sheep the hate, hypocrisy, and lies of this world.
A note to parents: The work on this web site, was not created with children in mind. Most of it is suitable for anyone to view, but some of it is not. So please monitor your children if you let them use the internet.
WT
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