“I am proud of you for your work in Musetouch and also inspired…it is also as if language cannot contain nor express the passion dreams and art of the artists…but there you are on your golden surfboard riding on the tumultous waves of muse….you too a muse…the question being what images to send you as my vision embraces the earth, the worlds, the many levels and dimensions of reality, fantasy, light and shadow, light and darkness…you know the work of Balthus and Lewis Carrol are part of that phrase Diane Arbus wrote regarding do not fear to photograph what draws your heart and soul…for it is the child wherein dwells the dream…and we who live briefly beyond that time we were child..remain within child …and when there…we are not far from that time when we were before birth…coming from the great ocean of darkness and dreams to the ocean of light and awareness…it is said that “before we were, we were loved and named, and from the source of creation the yearning that we might grow and appear in our utmost beauty”…so I am drawn to the memory and the presence of the child with the fantasy and dreams…but not an idealized concept alone because even as children we are more aware and feeling and passionate than adults are williing to remember…if anything their is both a fear of that time an attempt to both supress the boundliess energy and curiosity of childhood…to force the child to become filled with the rigid thinking gird of superstition and shame and repression…while in truth they are like hollow reeds from which the most beautiful thoughts and music can flow…all having deserved that mothers love, that milk and nurturing and celebration…that time of oness with the god of life, beauty and creation… that ebb and flow of beauty from the ocean of our dreams and desires, of our life and death…from whence we all come and go…so there…within this world and reality we dwell in…there is also the invisible but present dimensions of dream and fantasy…the delicate tendrils of love that encircle us with sweet breath….from which we are called upon to see, guard, protect and nourish…so I am lost in words…lost in the beauty and mystery that pervades the impulse of your Musetouch….for truly with our art and vision and music and dance and form we touch, we kiss and are kissed, embrace and are embraced…we rise, child and old grandparents, lovers, we rise and transcend this eartlhly form…like sweet fragrent wisps of spoke…yes words fail us…but we stand ever the child full of wonder by the night sea, neath the sky of endless stars…neath the pulsating throbbing rising undulating light. Happy 12th edition to you, my dear Maia!”
Mark Sadan, artistic photographer and director of the legendary Sesame Street
Cover by Kiyo Murakami