An Attempt to Free This American Soul from Materialism
Don’t run my love
don’t run from
that quietude, embrace
this silence — without
it our voices could
not carry, let it be
the canvas on which
we paint our lives.
Take this cell for example. Its birth is violence, its product; beauty. Can you keep it. Can you hold the bursting. Hold it like the flame. Hold it, it’s yours.
We had a family art night where we tried out an acrylic pour technique and these are the results.
Sometimes I might buy an onion, or two, just to have out on the counter-top.
His old job as
a machinist: setting
up coordinates and
watching the laser cutting
through sheet-metal, in
his voice a longing, or love.
He liked that kind of
work because it required precision
(by him or by the machine,
I’m not sure). How
admirable.
Is there a more desirable
asset than precision?
A trait I’ve never had,
sloppy artist that I am,
in any of my work.
Except perhaps Poetry—
or at least I’ve only cared
about precision when it comes to
Poetry.
Poetry in this day and age (!)—
and for a middle-aged man, nonetheless.
I’m having dreams again, or rather I’m remembering them. Hold my breath, don’t dare tell anyone, in case they disappear. Up in a puff of smoke. Who’s that Italian broad, ran around with Andy Warhol? she was there. Sophia Loren? nah, fashion designer or something. While adjusting her garter she told me, work. work. work. All the great ones put in the work.
The only good drawings he’s managed to come up with over the passed few years, are the one’s in which he started with nothing. No plan. No concept, no idea of where he would go with it. Start with a few lines. Experiment with technique and try his damnedest to fight those inner demons, which, bubbling, always keep him on the precipice; the knife-edge of sanity. A shape materializes and, if he’s lucky, he’s off into the void. The void where ideas bubble up and he sees it.
It’s here that conceptualization actually works. If you try to start from a concept, you’re doomed to failure (no matter the outcome), you’ll never accept the outcome.
—Ah, so this is freedom!
(And here is where you realize that in order for there to be freedom, it all depends on the situation; the here and now; the original intention, and application, of the design in the first place. )
To be read in the voice of Charlie Sheen:
I’ve given up the writ-
ten word, given in to
the limitations and mirrored
reality. so that i can focus
on the art of conversation.
like me it leaves no trace
at least no paper trail
no more trying to be
published, polished
no more trying to be
what i think They want.
Is there any other art form
in this day and age that could
have a more profound effect?
A conversation can’t be
commercialized, and sold,
it’s not profitable, unless
you’re in on it.
A conversation is love
an art form that is
the truest expression of life.
So I’ve had this woodblock project post sitting in the drafts pile for a while now and I’ve been working on some new woodblock designs. So I figured I should show off my first attempt as well! I had this vision while I was trying to fall asleep. While I knew I wasn’t asleep the shadowy image on the wall, looking over me, sure made me feel like I was in one. The shadows and light layered over one another which brought about a hue around the edges and seemed to move the figure like some kind of 3-D image.
It was clearly a face on the wall, as it always is. Once I looked deeper though I realized that a lamp shade is what made up the mouth shape, slits of light were the eyes, the convex ceiling was the top of the head. The two walls join at an angle which really made the figure pop. It was at this point that I figured I either had to draw the Buddha figure watching over me lest I be haunted by misfortune. Over the following days I worked out the sketch, changing proportions and trying to find the right shape. This is what I settled on.
Now I have only had one chance to try a woodblock and that was a while ago. So its really no surprise that while carving the block I had some gouges and imperfections, though it was fun I wasn’t sure if the end product would turn out.
I ended up needing to go back and cut a little deeper in the nose, and mouth area. You can see along the border where the knife slipped and some of the smaller areas are really gouged at. I’m still looking for some good quality paper to put a black and white draft on. I had some black paper around the house and wanted to try some prints.
Not exactly as excited as I was when I started. The raised face takes away from the cool outline. This was the better print that turned out after trying a few. While I was working on the nose I took a bit too much out which you can see clearly here. I also had a tough time getting a smooth print. You can see where I lifted the block the little bubbly areas that I think are either from too much ink, or not the right type of paper, or both. I’d like to try this image again, I think it’s really cool and could look great on a t-shirt.
This weekend I plan on sketching a new design, I’d like to make a nice archival butterfly picture for my wife.
Last night the kids were watching TV and I wanted to sketch. I started with the intention to clear my mind. I wanted to have no conceptions, no ideas in my mind before putting pen to paper. To draw a line with no judgment, opens a world of possibilities and makes the work a lot less worrisome. Though to just decide to drop the narrative in one swift moment and release is such a subtle piece of business. For someone like me the subtlety of such business would take a long while on my cushion, with silence, and it still might not even come. So, it didn’t exactly work, at least not in the way I expected. I sketched a loop and a line across the base and this was all the mind needed to form an intention; with just these two lines it had become clear that it was a frog. Now to say that having intention is the same as conceptualizing is, I think, the subtle difference between being liberated from, or being tied to an idea. Because intention is just at this point frog, and a willingness to change if the idea of frog turns into something else. Conceptualizing would have been to take it further; Pacman frog sitting near a serene creek with a mountains and trees in the backdrop. Which then becomes a little more rigid, and fixed, and eventually gives rise to the judging mind. The artwork then becomes only an expression of the shackles of limitation. I formed the body and began to cut in a few tufts of grass near his feet, then gave him a familiar frog smile. At this point I saw the distinct horns of the Pacman frog we saw at the pet store earlier in the day. So I went with it and continued adding rocks nearby. I wondered what he would look like in his natural environment, not backed up in the glass corner of a bare terrarium. This wonder gave rise to the rest of the picture: a Pacman frog sitting near a serene creek with mountains and thickets nearby.
Not exactly masterful. Maybe whimsical. Not timeless, but fixed to a particular time and memory. Immediately after I finished I noticed a few spots that I could have made better; I could have added more detail to the mountains, made a stretch of treeline to give it depth, and added detail to the frog, or at least created bolder lines. But alas the kids were done with the TV. The reaction of my son was really what it was all about. His smile brought the picture to life.
Within the past few weeks while I walk the dog at night you can hear the little tree frogs from different wetland preserves around the neighborhood croaking in sinuous unison. My son and I love the croaking, a constant wave of croaking. We’ll go to the chain link fenced preserve and see if we can spot any venturing out of the pond and onto the river rocks. The noise is very loud, so much so that we don’t even bother to try to talk over it. Usually though it only lasts about a minute or so until we’ve been spotted and word gets out to shut off the croak box. Then silence descends and its as if there was never anything there at all, because to get a glimpse of them is nearly impossible.
Not only this bit of inspiration but I’ve fallen in love with the master Hakuin Ekaku and his work. He evokes such uncompromising commitment. Some prints are so childlike that the viewer can’t help but feel overwhelming joy. His lines are bold and in his work is the essence of Zen, there is perfection in his imperfection.
And so of course I’ve been working out my own sumi paintings of frogs.
Spring has suddenly become more obvious; the cherry trees are in full bloom, birds are nesting, the frogs are croaking in an undulating rhythm that makes one sure there is some kind of mating dance accompanied with it, and you may have noticed that the produce in the grocery store has been grown a little bit closer to home. This brings to mind the theme of new beginnings that comes with spring, the ceaseless beginnings and endings that make up life on earth, and the reminder that we also live in a way that is reflective of the seasons, even if we realize it or not. We can use art as a way to get in step with the natural rhythm of the mind and body. By being willing to open up to the intention frees us to accept outcomes and circumstances for what they are and deal with them more fluidly. For when we get stuck in an idea, or a concept we become fixed and rigid.
So needless to say clearing my mind from outside as well as past influences didn’t exactly work, however I did find that open spot, free from judgment, which allowed the creativity to flow. I might even say for a minute I got a glimpse of being free from the concepts of this fleeting world of form.
