ROUSE

Horizontally wooden with great, flat spaces of white ascending upwards—this was a space, which became a gallery, which might always be a canvas of sorts. It has been interesting to see its growth and altogether surprising one has not yet seen the walls breathing. The space seems to assume the shape of its purpose and has the capacity to be a vessel of many vessels. As the group passed through the halls in clusters, one saw its current form—the temporary home for several stirring minds and makers. ROUSE. Still, the collection of people traveled without much sound.

I will speak now.

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

Weight and waiting.

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

One and Three Chairs

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

Lack.

Where are you now, he says.  I stand on top of myself, I hear
myself answer.  I stand on myself like a hilltop and my life
is spread before me.  Does it surprise you, he asks.  I explain
that in our youth and for a long time after our youth we cannot
see our lives.  Because we are inside of that.  Because we can
see no shape to it, since we have nothing to compare it to.
We have not seen it grow and change because we are too close.
We don’t know the names of things that would bind them to us,
so we cannot feed on them.  One near the middle asks why not.
Because we don’t have the knack for eating what we are living.
Why is that? she asks.  Because we are too much in a hurry.

How do I find myself in these long stretches of glorydays and the nondescript hours?  I find myself lacking motion.  This thing within me is not so at peace and stirs chemicals and thoughts seeking some unbalanced equilibrium.  I am pulled forward by memory and drive and the momentum of almostfullyliving and yet, in wanting everything at once.

Irony.  I do not move.

I do not travel.  The desire to move is that which binds me in the house of infinite wait, and the gravity of gravity enters my consciousness.  I am held still by some numbness I cannot name.  I blame the medicine.  Easy.  Why can I still not shake this nothing?

Ordinarily I move.  I feel.  Lately I have felt so nearly numb that I cannot honestly remember the last time I felt strongly about something.  Anything.  Right now I want to cry, I cannot.  Strike something, break something.  I cannot.  I want to be held.  I won't.

                         And yet
                                                               here I sit

                                       in my chair

                                                 in this place that smells of ghosts.

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

Square One

It was to go backward, "to recreate art, to start from square one,"...beginning literally with squares and cubes.

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

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.........