Transmutation

In Memory of Michael Eller

Separation by W.S. Merwin

Fragile Membrane

Time Frames

I started a new drawing in a particular difficult stage and as the stress eased up, I began to hate it. Getting to the point that the drawing was upsetting me, I finally started something new on the verge of tossing the first in the garbage. I rarely abandon drawings so I kept it, thinking it might be something I wouldn’t hate as much in the future, that it might have something to show me when the time was right. The new one I started clicked, and with the strength it gave me from involvement, improved my mood and momentum. The movie “Enter the Void” starts with a young man getting shot, then continues with his consciousness after death through what Tibetan Buddhism refers to as the bardo. The journey through the in-between state illuminated key moments in his personal history on the way to the next life. At the end, reborn as a new being, we emerge to see through the infant’s eyes the first gaze with the mother. Many mothers have described to me that first look and a sense that the baby had a broad awareness we lose quickly as we’re trained to be people. This knowing reminded me of Ram Dass’s descriptions of the consciousness of his guru. He knew things about Ram Dass and others he couldn’t have known without inhabiting a larger field of knowing characterized by loving awareness. Many writings have associated death with light, moving down a tunnel toward light as the ultimate destination. Yet in my past drawings, because of its unknown quality, I have thought of it and depicted it as darkness. Until now. Without conscious thought as I was doing it, in the second drawing I saw the unknown as luminous, harmonic, a sense of a pervasive all-encompassing awareness, a fullness of knowing that can only be seen as light. We may have that awareness at the moment of birth. All of these thoughts came after the image which as the essence of an idea is the spur to thoughts. What’s most unexpected is the idea that these were the thoughts that emerged when I focused on the present. To scale down my attention in the moment goes inward beyond the known and this opens a different kind of spaciousness. Deep inside the moment, even briefly, lies awareness beyond time. Knowing they are there helps me stay steady in these uncertain times .

Another Phase

Unrecognized Emotions

In my drawings, one reason I try to keep recognizable objects out of my work is because I want to focus on the feeling itself. Deep feelings can be very complex and human psychology has as many variations as there are individuals. Verbal descriptions can’t cover it. Stories can do it, but they need time to unfold. The feeling in an image is there in the seeing, needs no explanation. Just like you don’t need to describe what you’re doing if you’re walking around obstacles on a wooded path, anything visual uses the language of perceptional intelligence which starts its meaning with the feeling. When a surface area has an identity like sky, water or skin the meaning depends on the condition of the area, relies on the quality. Diseased skin is quite different than smooth. The qualities and conditions in a composition convey a dynamic essence that can make an impression without attaching it to content. If a drawing strikes a chord, then a connection is forged that can trigger a person’s associated thoughts, sometimes with a feeling as yet unrecognized. Feelings represent a personal truth forged from the individual experience. Much of American culture is training in hiding, suppressing, and ignoring feelings. Family pressures to keep feelings in check are considered necessary to polite behavior. Even to have some feelings at all is treated as a personal failing. Others don’t recognize feelings because they’re inconvenient, get in the way of profits or maintaining external images of the self, projected for others. People turn away from uncomfortable realities that threaten personal comfort. Unrecognized feelings make people vulnerable to demagogues who tap the invisible pain and label it with a cause. The enemy then becomes an acceptable way to vent pain, rage, and grievance. A clear example is in the widespread stoking of antagonism by the 45th president. Unable to cope with losing, his rhetoric is completely at odds with reality, a pattern of tyrants throughout history. They know rational argument doesn’t work on those hypnotized by manipulation of their pain. They need the outlet for the intense feelings accumulated. So much hidden pain shows a failure of love. And tyrants tell their followers that only they care about them, thus providing the love. Like political propaganda that focuses on negative emotions, creating love for the earth cannot depend on persuasion. That’s why it’s so good to see many artists building care for nature into their work. To stimulate love for the earth is to strengthen our connection and care for it.

Disintegration