Here’s the deal. All of those times Lee stumped us, he knew exactly what he was doing. It was a strategic and genius way to unlock crucial parts of students that would never have seen the light of day otherwise. Lee Baxter Davis is gifted in ways the world hasn’t seen since William Blake.
Although I’ve known the man over twenty years now, it still doesn’t quite register that he’s real. Lee is devotion. Every ounce of this man is full with it. Devotion to life, death, family, history, his church, to the emotional and psychological power of image-making, to desire, and perhaps best of all, to wonder. I bear witness to this human phenomenon. And long may he roam. -Robyn O'Neil |
From very early on, my eyes began to see in figurative duddles; not just of things to name (chickens), but of hens running, hell-bent on keeping their heads. In the shaping of images, you can uncover primitive abstractions that are at the heart of the senses.
Alea iacta est [the die is cast] There is falling upon the human a stupor, a mirage of enchantment and hymeneal deception. Once the dice has been thrown, we are urged to sing a hymn of imagination. Herein is the model of the psychological drawing: a persona[s], a place and an event, illustrating a clumsy reality. The tonsured monk sits in his little boat hoping to make the night sea crossing. The heart is a hand grenade that, when pulled from our chest, wants to be thrown in defiance against the target of our mortality. |