Elizabeth Smart 's writings--her theory and practice of art--
present patterns of change and constancy. Art, initially
constituted in an entwined and supportive inter-relation
of nature, love/passion, God, ir.spiration :and will, is in
its maturity generated from within a dissolution of the
supportive context. Art finds its power of expression in
opposition to nature and in the absence of God. By Grand
Centnl Station I Sat Down and Wept presents art in its
true creativity: creating unity from a central visionary
perspective. From this point onwards art falls away from
its metamorphic principle of transformation, in an enforced
exile, and in the later works becomes an expression of the
radical separation of nature (and love/passion) from the
visionary perception. Art without a supportive environment is
actualized in a self-referential creation, a "magic marriage
of words," that is still, however, a transformation (of tragedy
into comedy) and an expression of a potentially redemptive
God-like wrath and will.