Lucia Wiley and Light

In any art that is alive and really creative there is an exchange between the artist and the art itself. In some cases you can almost feel a physical exchange. It's a recognition of each other, of the quality in each other. It's an exchange that speaks. And you know at that moment that there is something very much alive and working at that time.

I remember one of the first great paintings I had ever seen in color. It was during a visit to the Chicago art museum. They had taken a very large religious picture of the holy family or some aspect of that, and put it on the stairway because it was so big they had to have the space around it. I remember coming up to that and the exchange was so great that I just simply burst into tears. And that's the kind of exchange that something real provokes. It's an overwhelming experience, something that only tears can absorb and soothe.

In any great visual experience, whether it's in nature or in art or in music or any other form in which there is a transcending experience, there's always a bursting of light. There's an enlightenment. In painting it's really a quality of light. In nature it's an overwhelming light. That is the creative experience, the inspiration that one never forgets, the mystical experience if you want to call it that.