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Another introduction

jim janknegt (j.janknegt@MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU)

My name is Jim Janknegt. I am a visual artist, a painter, who also works
for the Performing Arts Center at the University of Texas at Austin doing
purchasing. I remember the first time I refused to read a Walker Percy
novel. I was buying a novel in a used book store (it's funny but I can't
remember the book) and the clerk said "If you like that book you'll really
like this one." and showed me a copy of "The Moviegoer". I declined but
some years later I picked it up and have not been able to stop reading
Percy yet. Just the other night I reread his great essay about the San
Andreas Fault concerning the chasm between scientific view of man and man
as symbol monger. I was reading Oliver Sacks book, An Anthropologist on
Mars, which made me think of that essay. They are both intersted in that
invisible part of human beings that makes us more than just a bunch of
chemical reactions. I am very interested in man as symbol monger being an
artist myself. I am aware of the two extremes artist have ventured into in
this century. One being artistic fundamentalism commonly called
abstraction, minimalism, conceptualism that deals with the world literaly,
as if things have meaning within themselves (religious folks aren't the
only ones who can be literalist). On the other hand are personal symbolist
who create their own unique world with symbols to go along with it( which
the rest of us can not figure out to save our lives). I think Percy
strikes a middle ground and shows the artist how to incorporate resonating
images that are at the same time personal and universal. The artist tells
a unique kind of truth. It is truth that the viewer, reader knows but does
not yet know that he knows. It comes as an illumination. Percy's work has
been that for me. And inspires me to attempt to create the same kind of
work in my paintings. If anyone is interested you can view my paintings
online at http://www.utexas.edu/cofa/pac/janknegt

j.janknegt@mail.utexas.edu

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