I have a gazillion-trillion reasons why I depict animals in my artwork and why I do it the way I do it. These two articles; one titled “Thinking With Animals” and the other titled “Why look at Animals?” lists a few of the issues often within my thoughts. In short within my artwork I contemplate the ways humans think in animal metaphors and our efforts at self-transcendence – and how to go on and living well with all the beings on our planet.
Why I do visual stories is another topic yet one that is intimately intertwined with why I depict animals in art and here is a wonderful article on storytelling titled “Susan Sontag on Storytelling, what it means to be a moral human being and her advice to writers”.
Possibly best of all, and what got me started writing this blog post, is this article titled “Neil Gaiman on how stories last” – In that article at one point Gaiman says “Pictures, I think, may have been a way of transmitting stories.”
Because the Internet likes images I’m including one of my artworks that has – gasp! – animals in it.
Soup Moon by Sue Clancy (this piece is currently at www.caplanartdesigns.com)
Here are the full article links:
https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/04/16/thinking-with-animals-lorainne-daston-gregg-mitman/
https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/04/01/why-look-at-animals-john-berger-about-looking/
https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/03/30/susan-sontag-writing-storytelling-at-the-same-time/