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Statement on Artistic Aims
by Hale Woodruff

I believe that every artist, whatever his racial or national identity should interpret his life experiences and beliefs in his own individual manner.  Yet these experiences and beliefs may very well spring from the artists genuine concern for the problems of man.  For it is man, above all, whose purposes should be served by the talents and productions of his fellow man.

In this regard it is the dignity of man, human dignity, which is of prior concern.  This does not mean that a pedestrian, journalistic or narrative form of art will of necessity serve the human purpose, as I see it.  It is rather an art form which seeks a universality, a transcendence which interprets man on the highest levels of expression. 

While I may derive a "motif" or subject matter theme involving an idea, event, or my people, I strive to create an image which interprets, even symbolically, rather than one which describe, literally.  In this way I hope to conve the true inner essence of the theme or idea.