About the Octopus Art

Ages ago it seems now, I came across a wonderful artwork that truly captured for me the human need for love and illustrated the never ending number of directions in which we will reach, searchingly, ache-ingly, demandingly, for love. So when I decided to begin a blog, I knew I would use this work as a wonderfully fitting symbol and icon.

Unfortunately I couldn’t remember where I picked up the original artwork. But I have unflaggingly searched until finally discovering the original artist, Ben Lawson, a UK based artist, and you can view the original Octopus Heart art and more on his website.

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I have to say I love how Lawson titles this collection on his website “Absence Makes the Heart: Scientific specimens to be dissected and studied“. It’s the very essence of the idea of meaning from puzzle pieces and passion from puzzle pieces – and my writings here might aptly be labeled some sort of morbid study and differential dissection.

And I also appreciate how the tentacle in the lower right hand corner half forms an upside down heart with its tip. Interesting wiki fact about octopi:

The neurological autonomy of the arms means that the octopus has great difficulty learning about the detailed effects of its motions. The brain may issue a high-level command to the arms, but the nerve cords in the arms execute the details. There is no neurological path for the brain to receive feedback about just how its command was executed by the arms; the only way it knows just what motions were made is by observing the arms visually.

What signal, what high-level command, did it send, do we send to the arms of our heart, that such a half heart tentacled tip might form in auto response – upside down?  And I wonder -and fear- if perhaps this signal was only sent under the duress of my ‘morbid study and differential dissection’.