Art is the philosophy of death.

The Odyssean Adventure

Chapter One

   Years ago I used to attend a philosophy school based on a subtle blend of Eastern and Western traditions. It was a fascinating if not self orienting experience, to which I owe a great deal for the way it enriched my point of view of life. Most important of all it made my relationship with Art more complex, disturbing and thought provoking.

But it is always here no matter what we do. How wise of the Creator.

and we parly with Time as if we were immortals choosing to discount what death is.

The world of the subconscious is under all things.

   Art has given me a torch…torch bearer to a king. I walk through a maze of people’s feet lighting their way. There is a procession passing, enveloped by a wall of green leaves and purple clematis. Do you think I’m playing God? Does it matter where the question comes from? Whose mind is it that creates…a heart despising, a love deteriorating like a gnarled and ancient tree; a vegetable; a rock; a forgotten thing. It couldn’t do any harm; a thing finally, a single simple thing with no desires or ambitions, no prayers…nothing. On the wall, a neon sign spelling out Truth for the succeeding generations of Neanderthal to see and dare to look away.

  

  

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and in this the frolic of life is what Art is all about isn't it?

   The commitment of Art is a commitment of faith. It always comes down to this. Art is the pageant of the ordeal. A tiny idea is born out of a memory often limited in its scope and size. With the selflessness of the artist’s imagination, perfectly preserved from childhood, the residue of passing meteors sift through the artist’s hands; the energy of the sun leaks into the light in his eyes and a monument is born. An infinitesimal part of the universe has taken part and it can’t look away. What then will people do? How will it move them then to see this monument and dare to look away?

Even though I may or not be able to answer Art’s importance to the larger picture of reality (if it has any at all), or significance it might have on a human scale, I carry within me a conviction of its worth and its enigma; the fire in its face which I myself cannot reveal other than to share my journey of self discovery with others similarly induced.

   In making the Artistic journey intimate and personal, I wish to reveal the cosmic significance which I believe it has.

Art therefore, being a part of truth cannot be an object in a glass case. It must be handled. My hands have to get dirty; my dreams about it have to get scorched. It can only be explored subjectively, and this without sinking into a quandary of emotions. I’m aware of the dangers lurking for those seeking the truth within the thousand connotations of its mystery, but I’m not afraid. This is what I desire; the larger picture of me reaching the boundaries of me. I can’t stand back as if I’m apart from the experience of Art when I am experience and Art is my experience. I want to share this with all those who want to broaden their horizons and live their own experience of Art.

   This brings up the problem of analyzing Art. When we talk about the goal of Art we must know Art’s intention. So it goes, ‘the intention of Art is to reveal the truth’; how quaint the statement is, how smug. It seems almost too simple. One must know what truth is in order to reveal it and this bogs us down with ethical considerations. We swim in deep waters indeed, when we touch upon truths hardly anyone can agree on.

   There is another problem we must try to solve. The question of how to analyze Art is a loaded dice. It is a multifaceted problem of whether to look at Art objectively or subjectively. There is no doubt in my mind which of the two I choose. I don’t believe in the ability to see truth from a comfortable distance. Truth is not a laboratory experiment; there is no place for apartness. I need to get close to truth by living it with all the mistakes I might make finding it. Truth is a living entity; it is a fact that stands in the face of imagination like a block of stone. It is reality therefore I need to feel it and touch it; I need to witness it burn every idea I’ve ever had and know which one was ever worth having.

   These are deeply rooted questions in my heart and they surface at the end of every painting. These are the questions I shall be asking in my efforts to get a semblance of the nature of Art. They are my criteria to knowing why I seek a particular form of beauty; almost as if, and I sometime feel this, the particular form of beauty I hope to discover will be of the self. I couldn’t wish for more. There is a principal desire behind it, accompanied by the fear I will remain forever incomplete without it. At times I feel I have misplaced the idea of union with Art, in the end realizing I have been going down the wrong path. I feel a spiritual force I can’t understand working through me for the purpose of self reflection.

   A voice inside me says, ‘with hold back nothing and do what must be done’. But at any cost? I wonder. There is a great rush of wind in my mind circumnavigating the world. It pushes aside everything it confronts. It is furious for change, for events and circumstances. The most fascinating thing in this Odyssean pursuit is the event; the realization that becoming an artist and producing art isn’t even the goal. All focus lies in the spirit of the event; the motions of the psyche learning with the artist for the artist and that without him nothing can be fulfilled.

   Any work of Art that holds true merit always reveals a dual reality. It is enriched by a part of the artist’s life and what he is doing with it; how he is coping and reacting; his sacrifice; in short what his offering is. Then, it also shows the larger picture, the part of life the artist can’t control; the fear inherent in that and the consequent doubt of his inner world; the mystery working through him that seems to be a part of him while using him as a medium for expression.

   I have often wondered what the meaning of Art is outside the world of man. What is the quality of its message? Is it merely intellectual gymnastics? What part of evolution is this man’s, natures or some higher order?

Organic or Mechanical beings, all from the Mother of Imagination.

Art is an immortal gift to a mortal being whose very existence depends on his immortal attributes. There is no other animal that feels compelled to create extensions of self reflection. Indeed, there is no other creature known, except for man, which exercises its will to express an abstract inner desire for an apparently illogical and as yet misunderstood enigma.

   To myself, the practice of Art has become interwoven into my being and I look upon it not as a separate entity but as me, as what has molded the pattern of my life. I have come to realize something personal about it, something that explains who I am and what I am about. This something, even though I can’t label it bears the residue of a ‘quest’ extending from a ‘need’ and a ‘desire to know’. It is an anticipation of wisdom, and an excitement toward a discovered thing such as one might in a moment of enlightenment, know all of that moment.

The Magnitude of life inspires ART!

The Beautiful Image

Introduction

   It has been a long time since I have thought on the idea of writing a book on Art. The more time I spent thinking about it the more complex my thoughts became, so much so I was immediately gripped by the futility of it. Yet I persisted in weighing its importance to my life, how it has changed and given to it a vitality and sobriety I would never have known without it. Art has launched me on a fascinating journey across a vast sea whose horizons seem endless, within whose scope I feel is my Odyssey.

   Through it I have wandered into the murky waters of despair self seeking and obsessed, as if what I was discovering was a Biblical revelation of man’s upward thrust into the light and into the truth. All this through an activity which has enforced itself upon me to see not only people as they are but the human being in the context of time.

   I feel as Odysseus himself set on a course upon forbidden shores where reality is perceived by the very soul yearning, stumbling, reaching forward into an illusive world strange and unfamiliar, exotic in its beauty and horrifying in its tenacity.

   There have been times when I have clung to Art conspicuously, using it as a shield against my fears and as excuse for my excesses. At other moments I have cursed it for its fickle nature, the demands it makes, and the weight it imposes on my life, on my loves and wants. It is at those moments I have been tempted to abandon it, preferably never to have known it. To be normal in the sense of not feeling fated to forego a somewhat undesirable task blind folded from the beginning. Yet it remains merciless in its grip on the artist. The spirit of Art can’t exist without him, this of course whether it is to follow an idea or search for the perfect form in a beautiful image. In this sense Art becomes a responsibility to the human mind and its evolution.

Hollow are the people, empty shells of once used personalities, their thoughts like flamingos flying away. In the dark of their ignorance they scour the earth for some life that might fill their empty veins with new blood. In the thrall of their meaningless existence they are reminders of what it was to be human.