In Search of a Context
It seems that I am displaying an unusual behavior, but not one unnatural. There may be precedents in the Charismatic Christian community with their physical reactions to the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Also spiritual possession ritually practiced in traditional Caribbean and other cultures may hold some insight. And religious stories of rapture and visitation in European historical mythology may have some similarities. I do not make a claim to a connection to a spiritual power regardless of what I have experienced in my life. But I can say that I am having a very profound response to something the nature of which I cannot explain and that this response is one that is deeply human.
I have a background in art, in the techniques and in critical and conceptual analysis. I am an artist and so I put this experience in a context of art. Particularly I can say this because the behavior comes out the strongest and in fact revealed itself under the efforts of mark making. And although I do make pictures and want to investigate the images that come about I cannot consider that image making is the central purpose for what I do. However in contemporary art this poses no problem. So I assert that my investigation is within an art context although this investigation may well point to other aspects of culture and belief.
The spiritual context seems to hold great weight in its relevance to my uncommon behavior and it is one I will not discount due to the cultural authority it possesses. However I will not look for explanations that present general interpretations of what I am experiencing. Instead I will investigate various contexts as an inquiry to see what can be revealed or uncovered. And this I will attempt to present through my efforts in conceiving and fabricating events and artifacts as an artist in a contemporary world.
Abstract versus Automatic
When I see works that are abstract I am amazed by how the artist did them. People will call my work abstract but it is not. Abstract means to diverge by degrees from a starting or reference point. This is not the process I undertake.
I believe others like Jackson Pollock in the pure drip painting and Henri Michaux and Mark Tobey in many of their works are similar. Obviously these artists early on worked from forms and got further and further into abstraction derived from those forms but at some point the connection broke. André Masson is noted as giving inspiration to Pollock and Gorky with his automatic drawing experiments and I think this is the difference. It is that break into automatic drawing that makes this work separate from abstraction.
When I see an exceptional abstract work I can see the intense understanding of form. But in contrast I do not consider form when I work. The results in my art making seem to approximate this type of imagery but the process is organic, not derivative or contemplated, and so is in fact not abstract. I might say the same for the artists I have named above; their art making is more on an organic response level rather than based on a great concern of form.
Automatic artists were not and are not really concerned about picture making. One look at Pollock's work will tell you that. But I suppose he had the inspiration and courage to make that break, which ties his work in closer to the surrealists. For myself I must say that concerns of picture making hinder the process and I have had to do much work to put what comes to aesthetic ends (and I realize that these ends do not represent the central nature of the work.) However, it seems to me on viewing abstract works that picture making is the guiding goal. And that is why they are so beautiful.
I cannot present an explanation for what this organic response is but I am thinking of the results as a naturally forming crystal. Patterns reoccur in my work, most noticeably a drift to the left lower corner (which I have corrected to a degree with a more balanced posture.) And sometimes series of images will have very similar characteristics. Where this comes from I do not know but it is something I am discovering and not conceiving. On viewing the work of the artists listed above I think I can see the crystal emerging in their imagery. And to me this organic form that shows itself makes it incongruous to apply the term abstract.
However the question remains, if the goal of this type of work is not picture making, what is the purpose in delving into an organic response and how does that tie into contemporary, historical and anthropological concepts of art?
Not that I need to prove the point any further but who has ever called their children's work abstract? And are the painting elephants really capable of abstract representation?
Art Making While Asleep
Many times after a day of art making when I am laying in bed and falling asleep in my mind's eye I am in front of an image and I am drawing and moving in the way that I do. Then suddenly, in accordance to a gesture I see myself making, my fully relaxed body makes a swift, strong and languid jerk, as if I was used as a whip.
I have also been awakened from my sleep by such a powerful jerk and then remember dreaming of doing my art. And I wonder, am I not really doing the same thing as when I am in front of my images, even though I am asleep? And then, so what materials are involved?
Hmm.
When this impulse comes in these cases afterwards I sometimes try to recreate the exact physical sensation. I cannot. The movement seems to emanate from a physical place inside that I do not consciously know how to move.
Even while drawing sometimes the impulse comes so strong that I cannot seem to even hit the surface with the marking tool. At these times I let go of the tool, look at the image and let the movement come again and again until I am too tired to continue, paying as much attention as I can to what is happening. And again comes the same question, What is really different here? Am I not still making art?
The State of the Ecstatic 2006
The previous posting to this section of the website was made over two years ago. I decided not to add any words for a time, my discoveries always being so fragile and elusive that I needed to be gentle with them. But over the past couple of years my experience has expanded and what was formerly very ephemeral is becoming more familiar. And new insights appear continually.
I have found that my experience correlates closely to what in the Hindu tradition is called the Kundalini. A book documenting occurrences of Kundalini called "The Kundalini Experience" by Lee Sannella was the first document I ever read which I feel accurately details what I experience. The spontaneous and involuntary movements that come in these cases are called kryias, a word from the same tradition.I have found that what I do can come away from the art table. I have discovered many things that when I give them my concentration become stimuli to the ecstatic experience. These are functional stimuli that elicit the excitation that makes the experience. The excitation however is always spontaneous. That is the excitation does not come through a direct effort but comes as a reflex like response to the stimuli I concentrate on.
One of these stimuli is a way of looking into my images. I do this to test my response to the image to help me decide what to do next. Some images seem to elicit a stronger response. I also have found that I can see in my images a great depth, a deep physical three dimensional relief. And then sometimes a greater vividness comes which is difficult to explain but has more to do with my relation to the image than the image itself. I try to compose the image to bring this effect as forward as possible. However I have recently done some images that I respond to very strongly but which on an objective level don't seem to be as interesting as others. This is something I am now considering.
This is a list of what I call my approach, a series of reminders to keep my concentration on the stimuli when I work. First there is a highly effective four word prayer of personal construction. Then thinking the word "Gravity" has me imagine a downward force penetrating through my body and my mind to relax them. When I am at the palette sometimes I point my marking utensil towards the opening of a cup while looking into it. I discovered this early on when I found that dipping my pen into the ink well also could bring a response. While painting, thinking the words "Spirit Forward" or "Spirit" brings my attention to that which draws for me. It is a kind of surrender which also incorporates a certain attention to the tip of my marking utensil. "Look" reminds me to view the image in the way I do as discussed above. And recently I have discovered something new which elicits a very intense response when I am present enough to get to it. It is still very elusive and builds upon "Look". I am calling it the "Great Witness" as it entails intensely observing what I do while also being profoundly detached. This yields intense excitation, much movement, distinct perceptional alterations and a welling of emotion, but as if I am watching myself do this from a distant, calm and quiet place. I have repeated this approach so I know it functions.
For me making these images and objects is a practice of eliciting the excitation and the ecstatic experience that comes. That is the central aspect of what I do. I no longer need the art table in order to do this as I now have other ways available to me for eliciting the experience. However I still like the idea of using the excitation to create an artifact as it did when it first came to me. This bridge from the very internal to the external, which seems to bypass my participation in its span, is still very compelling to me. In all honesty though I must add that the results of this practice are varied. There are many things to be concerned with in making an art object besides eliciting an ecstatic experience. Although a physical artifact is always produced the depth of the experience is never as consistently intense as it can be at times. I must constantly work to keep up my concentration and find that things are shown by degree. This flux is part of the practice.
Stigmata
Trying to wash the stigmata away that keeps gushing beneath the faucet as it flows diluted red down the drain forever but the hole doesn't rinse away. It gets deeper, deeper than the width of a hand as it reaches into the well of all blood.
O Stigmata, O Bleeding Stigmata, you stain my life with ink down to each finger which cannot move and not write endless lines of flowing blood flowing like lines of blood flowing like life.
O Blessed Stigmata, please stop your flowing as I am obliged to drip lines of endlessly flowing lines writing the history of all blood lines that connect all life and this I do not want to do.
Stigmata says, Do you know the flow is endless? The lines are endless? I will use you until you are empty and then I will take another to let flow the well of all blood to bleed the endless blood of all blood that writes endless lines of life's blood endlessly.
You are blessed and the bleeding is a bleeding of the blessed blood that flows endlessly until it flows in you no more. You are blessed and you will write the flowing lines of all blood flowing like lines of blood flowing like life.
You are blessed, blessed to bleed the blessed blood of all blood, blessed to be obliged to bleed the endless lines which writes the history of all blood that connects all life. You are blessed to bleed until there is no more blood to bleed. And when you are fully bled then you will be written endlessly in the endless flow of all blood that flows into lines of blood flowing like lines of flowing blood flowing like life.
A Sacrament of Tears
Boy, why do you cry?
I see the death of everything
I see the birth of everything
There is nothing to do but cry
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