Joseph Cornell, Untitled (Celestial Fantasy with Tamara Toumanova), Early 1940sI love a good surprise, the kind that tips over into delight, especially when my two great passions collide: book arts and ballet. Little did I know that when I started my research on assemblage artist Joseph Cornell, I'd also learn that he was obsessed with ballet. It inspired some of his work, in fact.
For a run-down on a range of pieces he created for or that were inspired by ballerinas, The Australian Ballet's blog, Behind Ballet, does a nice job here.
Now that's the second thing we have in common - no wait, the third: we're both into the book arts, we're both inspired by ballet, and neither of us is (was) a formally-trained visual artist.
I realize that it's a bit ridiculous to compare myself to Cornell, but I feel like I'm in good company. My path into fine arts has been unconventional and intuitive, not formal or structured. It's little signs like this that tell me to just keep going.