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WINDS OF WISDOM

(OGLALLA SIOUX)

Where does wisdom come from? Is it experience? What about facing a new problem when past experience is of little value? What if all knowledge is around us, and all we have to do is listen? Not only outside of ourselves…but inside as well. Listening to the knowledge carried on the winds of the soul. 

What unseen hidden reservoirs of knowledge await us…..

I’m reminded of the movie “AMISTAD”, where a slave is brought to stand before a tribunal that is judging his innocence or guilt. He stands in majesty and proclaims for all to hear, “I reach into the past and call upon my ancestors’ wisdom and strength to support me, and when I call them, ‘they must come’, for at this moment, I am the reason for their existence. If they do not come, their lives were lived in vain.

Are we alone? Or are there hosts that call out and whisper to us? Is it possible that who we are is who we were?

Is it possible for a problem to be created without an answer? Ponder that one! If that were the case, there would be no accountability. I could say, “I was set up to fail.”

What I find is that most people have questions regarding the linear world of form….the measurable world of content. How much, how fast, how high, how big? What about the world of ‘context’…the un-measurable world? What is Love? What is Pain all about? Where do I go from here?

To live ‘in the question’ is living in possibility. And only when one has a question will he ever hear the answer?

Listen…for only you will hear your answers. They come in silence…they are being spoken now, between the words – in the stillness before thought – in the quiet place of the soul.

Scott Rogers’ love affair with bronze began when he bought a bronze sculpture from his uncle, Grant Speed. Six months later in October of 1990, he came home from work one day, looked at that bronze and said, “I can do that”. He sought counsel at the hands of master teachers, Fritz White CA, Stanley Bleifeld, Herb Mignery CA, Mehl Lawson CA and Grant Speed CA.

“My desire is to use art as a vehicle to inspire mankind to see the beauty of life. Artists are prone to leave emotional fingerprints all over their work; hence, what you’ll be seeing, in a way, are self-portraits. I love how shape, line and form communicate. Every line has a spirit and speaks volumes. Put a lump of clay in my hands and a short while later you’ll know exactly how I feel and physically see my soul. I am finding that the key to life is to develop eyes to see what is really ‘there’.”

Scott Rogers loves what he does and portraying the Old West. “I remember, fondly, the hours spent as a youth reading of renegades, rebels, rogues, outlaws, wild men and horses, ferocity, passion, power, cunning, independence, honor, loneliness, fear, rage, courage and freedom. These words worked their way into my soul and now find expression through my fingers in clay. The “West” was about men and women who had courage, who were part of something bigger than themselves. I find great pleasure in doing these people justice by creating a fair portrayal of their characters.”

“I sculpt feelings and not reality. In fact, to me, the words sculpture and feelings are synonymous. I love it when someone says, after viewing one of my pieces, ‘I can feel the bullet hitting him, I feel like I’m on the back of the bucking horse’ or ‘I can hear the roar of the stampede.’ I know art uplifts the spirit, it makes one want to be better, to feel good about themselves and their fellow man, to reach out for that which is good in life. It’s my wish that you experience some of what I feel through my art.”