Reflecting on Jasper Johns: Waiting for the "Aha" Moment

Sometimes I find myself just on the verge of an epiphany that just won't come.  I see something that makes me think and ponder and meditate, but the clear moment, the "aha" moment, just doesn't come.  That's the case right now.

Yesterday my friend, Evelyn, who is visiting from Detroit, (my homeland), and I took the metrolink train into LA to see the Jasper Johns exhibit at the Broad Museum.   The museum itself is worth visiting, but this particular exhibit piqued my interest.  I had no idea why.  I really knew nothing about Jasper Johns other than he is an artist currently in his late 80s on the cutting edge of the concrete movement in art.  

The work of Johns spans 60 years.  His favorite subjects early on were flags and targets.  They are described as concrete images that the mind is familiar with, but the viewer sees something beyond.  The art, it seems, is in the process rather than the result.  One of the works I was intrigued with is called Water Freezes - 1961,   which crystalizes to some extent the moment when water turns to ice.  Interesting, but still no "aha" for me.

As we continued viewing the exhibit, the meditation on when objects become art was apparent.  It is a question Johns' work asks over and over.  And that did make me wonder.  Such as, when does a painter's brush preserved in an old coffee can that the artist actually used, become a work of art?  To that end, I realize now, anything can be "repurposed" into art!

Eureka! I just not realized, this is my "aha" moment.  

​Water Freezes
1961
Jasper Johns

What I took away from this image is that there is a point, just as when water becomes ice, objects become art.

My "aha" moment!

---

​At lunch after our visit to the Broad, I noticed the napkin on our table was an object that, to some, could become a work of art, so I captured this image.  Yes, here the object becomes art...at least in this artist's mind.  Aha!

I may need a bit more meditating on all this.

Stay tuned.

---