Remembrance on a hilltop.

There is a world beyond these moments and the power of memory to document what is now past.  Life is a series of phases that meld together with perpetual forward motion and recollection.  This time upon us now—however much it may serve to mark the finality of things and the beginnings of others—is still yet another phase.  It is a transitional period, though far more distinct than those past; it is a shift from crawling and searching among others to walking, climbing, and discovering on one’s own.

I still cannot help but to mention the surge of gladness and warmth I feel when musing upon that which is now ahead.  There is a voyage before each one of us; I feel confident in this truth.  Growth knows no bounds; we begin as children—fledging things—and never emerge as fully grown beings.  The moment at which the forward and upward motion of life ceases is the peak that ought to never be reached.  We ought to never be wholly ripened but, rather, in an unbroken state of blossoming and ripening—to seek still more of ourselves, the infinite core ever-unfolding.  Memory is a weapon we wield as we fight for the years ahead to be our own.  Memory is a treasure that should not be lost.  Though today may symbolize the end of the days of our youth and the anxiousness to commence the life that awaits, the simplest of memories of times that gave even the subtlest stir in our hearts should not be dismissed.  Memory is also the thread intertwined with life—my own being no exception.

I have found the words of the American poet, Jack Gilbert, so very fitting for this moment.  “I stand on myself as a hilltop and my life is spread before me.”

and so it goes.........

(Non)stop motion.

Order must exist for there to ever be any consideration of flow.  It rests not in a state of stagnancy but of perpetual motion, mirroring the ever-stirring ideas within an individual. One must reconcile the desire for immediacy with the wait asked of them.  It would not make the least sense for life to be a stream of climaxes following one another, for then, after the initial few, all excitement and anticipation for the surge would fall away.  Subsequent moments of peakness would lose strength and meaning for the individual and life would become dull.

The strength of anticipation matches the magnitude of joy in the realization, so one is called to wait.  Time, however, should not see the artist in inactivity or immobility; they must be very much alive with continuous investment in the self and the work they ultimately generate.  The desire to create ought never to be suppressed in favor of the ease of surrender.  It takes courage to shake one’s head in answer to abandoning the craft and the life.

One must find a balance and solace in knowing such things.  There should be structure and form, but still always the freedom of thought in which the self moves without hindrance or doubt.  Self-assurance and organization of both space and time are the best tools to wield in the countless struggles of the artist.

Manage but do not micromanage time.  Do not compartmentalize ideas or space, or connections.  Find fitting systems.  Try your hands at many things; weigh most options.  Drink with eyes open.  Seek to never never never be a sponge.  Discover harmony.

and so it goes.........

Circularity.

Og hér ert þú, Glósóli.  And now you’re here, Glowing soul.  There is this thing at the core and a light tearing at my insides—and this is that which I call mine.  Above all things, know thyself.  Know thyself.  Life is a constant climb and struggle to hold the word “I”, while only even just beginning to wrap fingers around what all that means.  The artist is he who understands this clawing within him and embraces the process of releasing, remembering, and retaining all that he is.  Circulation of work must begin with the self, with the constant shifting, ever-growing body of thoughts and ideas suspended in the vessel.

To jump immediately into the public’s eye is suicide, as man is but a beginner in everything.  An amateur.  A fledgling.  He must first gather his wits about him and venture into that which makes him; he himself must discover the truths housed within the beautifully synchronized entanglement of chemicals and matter.  This sphere into which he enters in order to pursue requires much, asks more.  Solitude asks the very questions one can neither form nor answer.  But the artist ought to have no fear.

“I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Everything changes in every single way it can, and that holds especially true to one’s perception of the core.  It is the self that remains untouched and consciousness that grows in fullness.  Gradually, eyes are open to that surging thing within and man might begin to suspect his strength— to know the power of his voice, the invincibility of his memory, and the beauty of his ideas.  Once some time has been spent in introspection, as he continues to blossom and ripen in understanding, the creator may take steps in direction of the world.

The world, though, does not want him to succeed.  It seeks to destroy him, for the man who stands alone—the artist, the thinking individual—does not belong in the world as it is but is a being from the world as it should be.  The trappings of reality, however, hold him to this earth and so he embarks on the constant battle to remain himself.  The interconnectivity of everything demands that he live and react with all else, and the clawing thing at his center begs him to display that which resides within.  He never is to give away any piece of himself nor tell his secret of being; he is only to show—to participate in the flow of life and not be consumed by the masses.  His branches stretch out to mankind, just as his roots extend in self-knowledge.  He offers that much more of humanity—and, in turn, comes to know its nature more clearly—in the act.  Art, anything to be called a creation not excepting the self, spreads humanity.

The ease of the travel, however, depends entirely on the notion of relational aesthetics, and this foundation rests on the principle that the audience is not an audience.  All are human beings.  Painstakingly, with each exchange of words and ideas—with each human relationship, the perfect form of humanity and the motion of the world come close to being understood.  The artists cannot compromise their work—or their core—for the sake of others.  They must present everything as it is, as they see it, and not as they think society perceives.  Truth, then, is never abandoned.  And the voice of humanity carries on.

But, with this invitation to “come and see”, criticism is welcomed.  And, in this, the artist must be resilient.  He should not edify walls around his supposed monument of beliefs, though; rather, his mind should serve as a filter and find the things that agree with the core and the thoughts that challenge him to seek still more and become that much more himself.  He must persist, accepting the constancy of change by allowing the words of others to enter his space.  His hands are the tools of change, his mind and core their master.  The beauty of ideas, so long as they are never abandoned, lies in their capacity to be shaped and grow into themselves.  They are as a cool block of marble, each thought-provoked chisel mark creating the eventual sculpture, which was always to be made.  Time.  It takes time.

The sculpture—the emerging ideas—is a product of connection and the precursor to networking.  Mankind is a vast sea of intertwining webs spanning continents and oceans.  Once this resource starts to be tapped into, the power of a single thought and its author is amplified. Individual people, as drops in the great bucket, may resound.  Collisions are not to be sought unless they spark some larger mechanism for conceptualizing humanity.  True, too much of a good thing is bad, but just enough of the terrible is desired.  Negativity leads to thirst, and failure to hunger.  Growth.

There ought to always be motion, though, with forward velocity.  Others should be sought and collected as precious treasure, for it is the brothers who help to uncover the hidden rooms within the vaults of the mind.  They help the artist to awaken the sleeping notyetformed ideas and give still another wealth:  memory.  Experience and exchanges excite newness and resonate with already existent thoughts.  From interactions with the rest of mankind, the artist is able to speak more clearly and more fully comprehend the words.  He might come to address humanity.

and so it goes.........

All conflict and understanding.

The impossibility of finding balance within myself—an equilibrium of soul and thought within my very core—caused the word no to spring to the tip of my tongue as I followed the article down the length of its pages.  I find the idea of collectivism detestable and brotherhood deplorable, though I can rationalize their existence.  Society demands and requires groups to make sense of all that remains to be understood, especially in that which we call art.

Relational aesthetics calls the whole of mankind to come and see, to know there is a common thread running through humanity and tying the strings of Is.  In this way, the artist does not abandon that which should be held above all else:  the self.  A conglomerate of selves, in form of the word collective unit, group, allows outsiders to the work to see different parts of humanity and of the reality called the world revealed in the pieces pulled from each individual artist.  It is the self-formed mirror of the subconscious that permits the relation of one human being to another through two- or three-dimensional space.  The artwork has the tremendous capacity to reflect the human experience because its creation was all experience; its essence laid bare in the act.  Humanity can be seen in art so long as the painters, the sculptors, the photographs--even the amateurs--poured from the core in a simultaneous conscious and unconscious act of making.

Multiple authors, one piece.  Each being is a shadow of the form of humanity and enabling the shadows to be collected in one place, such as an artist group, gives a clearer sense of the form.  Collectivism, in this case, does not eliminate the man alone--the individual--but, rather, reveals a sea of souls within the oneness of a piece of art.  The unit is a temple and a transmogrifier, housing the separate selves in their untouched state and reshaping the individual cores into the mold of a unified whole.

and so it goes.........

Everything in its place.

See the world; know its people.  To see, to know that much more of humanity is a tremendous calling to which I will be forever climbing.  I wish to step behind the eyes of another people—another world—and, in that, find so much more distinctly the chord that plays through all mankind.  It is the thread intertwined with humanity itself, which proves there is something within the core of every being that is one and the same.  It is not the peoples who are different; rather, it is the face, the colors, the places, and experiences shaping the person’s form and life’s journey.  I wish to collect as many pieces of the world as I can so that I might form some semblance of pure humanity.  There are many things to which I aspire but, at the heart of it all, is a common theme:  I wish to give in the way only one human being can to another. To those suffering from diseases, needing the healing touch of another human being’s hand, I want to give.  To those without a voice, I wish to give words and form to their stories. It makes complete sense to me—and could not be otherwise—that I wish to pursue a degree in both an art and science and a minor in human studies.  People fascinate me and will never cease to intrigue.  I wish to capture, understand, renew, and enrich their lives in film, study, medicine and art.  Everything finds its place.

Ghana presents so many possibilities that once seemed unreachable. 

and so it goes.........

Transformation: The Completion Delay Constant

Everything in its proper place, made immobile by epoxy, the construction is finished or very well ought to be. The kettle fell last night and now I gaze upon glue falling messily down glass. There is still work to be done, but I will abandon it for now. Let it lie.

Half-stumbling, half-gasping I realize I leave nothing unless unfinished. I allow the endless tension to drive the want, the thirst, for never a found idea, only seeking all in a staggering climb. My life, my work is constantly building, rebuilding. I destruct and move forward with everything and the "I".

and so it goes.........

Transformation: Inbetweens

Watches. Unused, untouched lightbulbs. Mirrors. Remnants of forgotten newspaper. A tea stain as sign of where one had been before.

Circularity in the shape of the original pieces of the tranformation, the broken time pieces, the mirrors points to the idea of infinity. Reflective surfaces are the endless span of time intertwined with life. All perception of time is lost when one leaves reality for the complacency found in artificial constructions of "happiness".

and so it goes.........

On crowded rooms and blank spaces.

I have been neglecting a blog. I never thought I would find myself in such a place I felt I must force myself to write, urge myself forward. I with my endless thought, stream of consciousness way of narrating my own existence. The hesitation was, perhaps, my desire to always wait until ideas spilled forth and words fell from my tongue; all the more while I sacrifice the boundless capacity found in the act of pouring. Limiting my own infinity and letting it fall prey to the world of lines, sticks, and bones. Letting my own resonance go unheard. Soon I will allow the maddening spiral in which I dwell, thrive, exist to run dry at the roots. I cannot continue like this.

We are, before all things, beginners. Stumbling into an accidental discussion—the smell of oranges penetrating my olfactory sphere—I found all staring at a blank canvas upon an even barer wall. I realized I was awakening once more to my own identity as an observer, a listener, a seeker of things. All that could be of seemingly nothing before my eyes in words and three dimension. The white square was skin and world and windows and beginnings. It was simultaneously not yet being and ceasing to be. Nothing and everything. We were seeing.

Sarah Sands.

The repetition of the sounds within her name brought with it the continuity and mess of all things. She posed the question 'what is it to see?' How much time do we spend looking, and when are we seeing.

Sarah began in a haze, finishing undergrad wandering to Spain. Her paintings were exactly as placed before her eyes. A series of windows revealed the act of seeing: through, into, past windows or mirrors. Realities reflected; realities seen. Yet still there existed a blur of edges and the potential motion accompanying. Soon Sands herself, now close to thirty, decided she must then go, if at all. Yale, grad school. The representational push of her work, sterile. Interest near vanished. Her labor of love, she claimed, had descended to the laborious, constant act of finishing. It was in composing, putting in time and self to a canvas, that she was moving. Experiencing. The art of experience and the experience of art in and of itself were intoxicating; she felt herself completely being just and the paintings simply were and are. Paintings are meaningless, she said; they are such that they passively sit upon walls. It was the actions themselves possessing gravity—creating and, its parallel, looking.

Some time away. A move to Indiana. She resumed painting, envious of the freedom of the explorers she taught and holding on to self-imposed rules. Her work took to a messy entanglement akin to the woods area through which she passed each day. The thickets in her memory and recorded on canvas were a nesting period; they comprised a series revealing the constancy of broken lines and the feeling of lost.

Later and her latest work grew as branches. The still forest she remembered so well was arrived at from elsewhere. The interwoven pattern of looms emerged in her paintings. Straight lines she painted as she told a story to herself. And then the phenomenon of stepping back and the continuous act of to-and-fro: walk up, paint, walk back, look, repeat. This was the connectivity of all artists.

Anyone watching the proceedings of the evening might have permitted fear to take hold of them. Ninety minutes spent on a thirty-six square inch panel and technical discussion. The intimidation of a perfect blank canvas before their eyes was too much. It is the conscious choice of the artist to exist. To settle for nothing less than being and to always begin.

and so it goes.........

To repeat.

Repetition may exist apart from monotony, each pattern becoming a series of infinitely changing pieces. All art is remnants, however unbroken; it is memory and soul on paper, on canvas, occupying three-dimensions of space. The immaculate blank page becomes both a looking glass through which one views the world within the mind of the creator and, yet even still, a world of its own.

The generation and regeneration of the fantastical worlds were neither kin to a genius nor madman, only a man. Franklyn Evans exposes imaginings in his exquisite watercolor work. A fragment of one became the start of another, each reuse bringing with it a refreshing newness.

This practice of recycling became an integral part to Evans' body of work. And, extending upon the idea of coming back to where one has begun, circularity was an ever-present fixture in his space.

and so it goes.........