Pilgrimage

I have of late been going out to downtown SF to do my ecstatic movement in the streets. I see it as a journey to see again the transformation about me that grace allows me at varying degrees. I call it a pilgrimage.

The idea was based on issues of defining a frame of presentation for what I do. As it is basically continuous and spontaneous it resists programmation. I decided to just do what I do in the context of a social space, an ecstatic in the flow of public concourse.

My basic trajectory is to walk in the most compelling direction through an act of surrender. This will often take me in circles, but this is not the point. Often I will stop suddenly as spontaneous movements emerge. This can get very intense as I allow it to move me as it will. I continue until they subside, and then look for another direction to begin walking again. I remind myself to move and see in a context of surrender.

I focus on the people around me as this is the greatest stimulus. I have positioned myself amongst the flow of pedestrians crossing the street, focusing on them as they come. I find myself awash in a river of people, from each I recognize something, like a ring of a bell, which energizes me. This is a very heady to experience.

The most consistent response from the public though is ignoring and avoiding me. People's faces are well guarded, to which it is easy to respond in like. But as one of my directives is to turn away from compulsions of self protection I once looked more deeply and saw their faces transform into amazing masks, each spilling over with their own particular wonderful rigid beauty.

One time at the corner of Market and Montgomery the environment suddenly shifted and I saw what I can only describe as heaven on earth. I began to weep openly, and the repetition of the words in my mind "heaven on earth" reinitiated the experience during several minutes. Nothing had changed visually, I was just seeing heaven on earth, as the tears rolled down my cheeks for all to see.

Now although I am behaving as a crazy person might, jumping about randomly, and although there is some apprehension in exposing myself this way in public, the far greater apprehension is in the anticipation of exposure to the expansive. My process is inclusive of the people, they become like ink to me, they are part of the whole. But the unfathomable intimacy in the transformation that I may experience exposes me to an extremely vulnerable level. What I may perceive is quite a lot to take in and will rend me, crack away at my identity. And it seems to me that I am being perceived just as deeply as I am perceiving, maybe even more so. And this is the goal. So when this is happening, the fact that it is happening in public space just doesn't hold any concern any more.

This is my art. I have a uniform I wear every time, white shirt, black pants, white shoes, with my blue metal water bottle on my belt. Also a small feather in my hair, as a headdress is essential. I take only what I will need to be there and make art. Maybe I will add some objects, things I have used in other events, but for now this is the setting. My art is in being an ecstatic in a public venue and bringing about the transformed experiences that grace will allow me through my efforts of surrender. I will be on pilgrimage making art again soon.

Stimuli to Response: Counter Intuitive Intuition

As an addendum to my previous post I would like to explain the relation of stimuli to the response in the ecstatic experience. What arises in the experience is not usually associated to how I elicit it. I have learned what works over the years and often this would seem very specific to me. It is an empirical approach, not a logical one.

For instance, it may arise that I experience an overwhelming feeling of love to and from me of an order which is not usually known or accessible to me. But this is not achieved by honing or trying to augment my sense of love through focus, meditation, chant or prayer on love. I may find this by relaxing my sacrum area, surrendering to the spontaneous movement that arises, and visually focusing on all that is about me. It will arise as if on it's own, not by efforts to form it.

Other stimuli I use seem purely functional and specific to me, such as looking into or poking a stick into a cup or bowl. This can even work when I see someone else poke a stick into a vessel. Fortunately for me these objects and actions have a great amount of metaphorical associative possibilities which I can use thematically, but this isn't why it works. Rather it is because this is the action of me dunking an ink pen into an ink well, which is an action associated with drawing, and some how the focus I put on automatic drawing to elicit a response got transferred to the dunking of the pen, as these actions are always consecutive.

Although some may use the power of a symbol to focus and open an experience on what the symbol represents, this is by no means the sole way, or even a completely efficient way. A focus on a symbol can entice many levels of the psyche; conceptual, sentimental, ego identification, which can distract from an awareness of the ecstatic and expansive. In my experience when a stronger ecstatic response comes it is pretty shattering to my sense of self. That love may be more bewildering than comforting, even disorienting. It is a qualitatively different experience. I do not see the bridge between them.

In this the sense of cause and effect does not hold for me. It is more practice/surrender leading to grace by grace. Joseph Campbell said that some spiritual traditions are there to protect the user from spiritual experiences, and I know how and where in my being some spiritual actions and practices affect me, which I can see are distractions. I do sometimes find stimulating words that I can use to elicit the response, but they have come directly from the ecstatic experience. I have learned them, not devised them. It is a path of intuition, but intuition that has proven itself.

Mastering Surrender

One of the tasks of being an artist is to master your tools, be it a musical instrument, bodily movements, physical media or structures in language. Artistic merit is often considered on this kind of mastery alone, even though there more to be considered.

From the beginning of automatic drawing it became obvious I was no longer using my focus to make intended marks on paper. Rather the automatic drawing act was putting focus back onto myself, a focus in perceiving the impulse that came from inside. My artistic process had flipped, I was now not honing my focus towards making an authentic mark, but using my newly discovered process of spontaneous marking to focus what was arising inside. The care and concentration on the integrity of a mark shifted to a concentration for an authentic response from an inner impulse, one which only showed up in the act of automatic drawing. I was beside myself in needing find out what this was all about. I had to be true to what I had discovered. There was no other way to do this than by continuing to draw and observe as best I could.

I also wanted to make visually interesting art, but I found most art tools only minimally served me as they were designed for specific applications, none of which I was involved in. I had to investigate different kinds of tools that would better work with the way I was marking. Through this I have developed a vocabulary of materials better suited to my spontaneous way of marking. Many of these tools and materials are homemade, non traditional, invented to make the idea of a specific looking mark, and sometimes for metaphorical content. This I could say is my external effort towards a mastery in my art.

Obviously this development of physical tools was based on a commitment to my automatic way of marking. And this meant holding a goal of having the automatic movement come as fully and consistently as possible. This was a very difficult task at first. I really had no idea about how to further it, or hone in on it. Initially it was just was holding my pen towards the paper and waiting. There must have been an internally activity I as engaged in, but it was too subtle for me to perceive. Equally difficult was trying overcome the will to imitate the movement, to keep it authentic. Fortunately I could feel the difference.

Eventually I began to perceive how it arose in me more clearly, but not usually in a way I could recreate. Over time though I have learned how to focus and stimulate it. This has come in small steps. Bit by bit I have discovered certain actions, ideas, words, movements, places on my body, external objects and such on which I put my attention that prove to be stimuli to the movement. These are things I discover which get a strong response and which I can recall again to it recreate the response. Sometimes they work for a only short while and are then no longer functional. Others are still in use. These I consider like mnemonic devices which are tied to deep internal actions outside my awareness. Over time I have been able to more clearly perceive these internal actions and how to stimulate them more directly, but there always still seems to be a deeper activity that is out of my awareness, so it is a continuous process of discovery.

These days I can access fairly deep states through my vocabulary of stimuli towards experiences that continually astound me. I cannot regulate how deeply I will go, this is still an aspect of grace, but my tools of surrender have been collected and their use have been honed. This is the path in my mastery of my art.

The Limits Of Spontaneity

At the basis of my work is a commitment to surrendering to the automatic process, and therein all the marks I make are completely spontaneous. This is a decision, and one which puts limits on my work that I work within. As with all works of art, limits are necessary opportunities for discovery. This is well known, but perhaps in the case of my work the limits are not so obvious. And as such many will inaccurately assume a more common process of artistic formulation to what I do.

What spontaneity means formally is that I make my composition not based on placement on the picture plane, but on the depth of the plane, going into the surface. When marking I do not consider where the next mark will go but surrender to the movement that will come. This was a very challenging thing to master because it means loss of control over the image. It also means a loss of the dialog of decision stroke per stoke in cultivating a picture, an act which I have always found very engrossing. The surrender is provocative in itself, and why do it, but so very different than the continual consideration of placement in the more common practice. And still it is something that requires me to return my attention to consistently.

I fortunately discovered a certain pictorial depth that my images create. I have researched this on black on white images, although I first noticed the extreme degree of it on colored work. I keep this compositional awareness in my layering of paint, to create depth and synergy between layers as desired. I have even discovered that the filing in of a top layer can reveal the quality of a lower layer that was previously obscured by the more sparse top layer.

I need to note that my Emerging Imagery works have definite compositional placement on the picture plane. But these are done with masking and reliefs, the marking process remains the same. I am happy to introduce these pictorial elements in my work, and the return to this process which engrosses me as stated above.

Another aspect of this spontaneous process of working, and which is different than other common practices, is that there is no possibility of imitation. I am not woking to copy another's look or style, regardless that it may look as such. In fact, doing automatic drawing was not an idea I wanted to pursue in the first place. It's revelation in me was just as spontaneous, and extraordinarily provocative. There is no way I could imitate in this as its is a very different process. This also means that making accurate studies for final works is also out. This impossibility of imitation is also a limit, and again imposed due to the commitment to spontaneity.

There are choices I do make in my art: properties of the support, formation of marking tools, properties of the media, and when to stop, and now an introduction of delineated imagery through masks and reliefs. I take these decisions very seriously as they are so few. And in these decisions I can take influence. But because of the spontaneity itself there is no possibility of influence in my marking. The surrender process is very different than a calculating process of imitation. In this way there is no possibility of me following an historical precedent in it. This goes against a very ingrained belief, and one I am not shy about bucking, because to me it has been exposed as the cerebral construct for what it is.

The philosophical implication of this is rather considerable, and I may put forth that so much more is based on an organic structure that is assumed to be of a cultural lineage. This of course is related to the "nature vs. nurture" dilemma. But what is intriguing is the distinct possibility of realizing in a profound way the inaccuracy of an assumption, one that may even be unknown as such. That the experiential revelation of an organic process, by contrast, can show the poverty of a conceptual construct.

A Career Move

I have recently changed the name of this blog, and have not posted for small while. This basically is a result of also having recently spoken with an arts career coach, which had made me reflect on making a split in my activities. Her input was that if I have a goal of making a living from my paintings, which I see as a fine goal, then I should consider that the upfront information about my process may dissuade many prospective galleries from representing me.

I am surprised as I thought an intriguing back story was a positive element, that authenticity and the provocative are desirable. But maybe in my case I guess it is not the kind of provocative that sells. This is a very interesting inquiry in and of itself and fodder for more creation.

But I am deciding to accept this career input. And can also see how working within these limitations can give me increased possibility in my pursuits. I am still moving ahead with painting, concentrating on compositional structures that in the past have proven effective, and also will be focusing on creating event based pieces in which I will display myself in my process. I see that I can proceed more fully in each direction this way. The challenge of how to communicate what I do and how to make that understandable is mitigated. No one could guess the degree and depth of automatization I experience from looking at my paintings. I now relinquish the effort in wanting them to. But those that see me in my events will witness me and know in that way.

For the time being, those find me through my events will find a way to this blog and to my painting website. But the link now will not follow in the other direction. I do believe an integration will come in the two directions, but will come from the direction of my event presentations. Then the whole work may be apparent to those who want to discover.

Ecstatic Qualia

I always wonder how to describe my ecstatic experiences. They are so different from any other type of experience. I tend to think of them as resulting from a distinct perception. They are always confounding. It has been this way and it continues to be this way. It is as shocking as discovering that there is a color that has never seen before, except in this case it is a perception that has never been experienced before.

I am drawn to indicate them as separate qualia, unique from the other sense perceptions. Qualia are "the internal and subjective components of sense perceptions, arising from stimulation of the senses by phenomena." As sound is distinct from image and smell is distinct from touch so the ecstatic qualia appear distinct to me from all others.

I know, this is a confounding statement to make. It raises so many questions which are extremely challenging to pursue in thought. I cannot be definitive here. I just have to state that I am compelled to ponder the question of it, perception coming forth independent of the ones that we know and live with in a normal course of existence.

I have tried to describe the qualities of my ecstatic experiences on another post here. I did so by relating them to more normal experiences. However this can only be a distant representation. The ecstatic experience for me is not a collection of different sensations but more a systemic confluence of sensations mental, physical and visual and at other times aural as well. It can take place as a perception concurrently internal and external, sometimes without a clear distinction of which is primary.

Recently, as an example of sorts, during an ecstatic movement exploration I had the sensation of a white space in my chest area. I saw it in my mind's eye but could also feel it and see it inside my body. It also had a presence and an intelligence. I felt it was communicating to me, but was also a part of me. I am unable to say what that communication was but the sensation of it was systemic and unique. It came with a transformation of my normal sensation of being, which was an intense thing to experience.

And when it was gone the memory of it fades as well. I know it was something extraordinary, something to which all else pales in comparison, but the quality of the experience cannot be well represented in my mind. I know it when it happens. I have seen the white space before and know I will be familiar with it when I see it again. But I cannot quite recall the full quality of it when the perception is gone.

I assume that all of us are so individual that the descriptions of what I experience may have little recognition from others, even those who perceive their own ecstatic qualia. But I also assume that our form and make up are similar enough that the generalities can be recognized and acknowledged. There is a perception distinct from the ones commonly considered, one that can be indicated and discussed. Or perhaps, if not independent, then this acute culmination of various mental, physical and sensational processes is certainly a unique experience, one apart, the qualities of which can be recognized and explored.

I cannot escape thoughts on this distinction. And I am considering it an important place from which to explore, despite the challenges of describing the qualities of individual non shared experience which are not easily described in usual terms. This is what is put before me again and again as I recurrently find this increasingly familiar but distinct experience.

The Culmination of Dissolvement

By the time I completed this work I had already done a few works with organic debris mixed with acrylic compound, however with this one I decided to add some pigment into the mixture. In doing this I had the opportunity to vary the color of the mixture in order to add a distinct gestural element into what was a very textural and topographic surface.

The variance was in making a final and partial pass in a slightly whiter tint of the same orange color. This subtle contrast allowed the brighter color below to peer through which gave depth in an emblem like manner while still being integrated into the overall texture. This gave the work a certain presence which I always strive for.

On focusing onto this presence I found it growing when I became more aware of the many separate elements that made up the texture of the work. The more distinct I saw the various details the more the presence came forward. The more the parts and pieces began to separate and differentiate the more I could see the face of the whole. It was exciting to able to see this growing in two directions, a greater experience of the whole in complete relation to a view of increasingly distinct parts. The vision became more and more palpable, like a living breathing presence, the more and more it disintegrated.

Eventually the experience reached a point where I could no longer see deeper in the two directions, the parts and the whole, and the presence receded from prominence where it was just previously. However the notion of this paradox has stayed with me, of seeing the face of the whole only through seeing the infinite facets of its infinitely dividable parts, and has become part my personal mythology in my furthering exploration.

Unfortunately the tinted color I mixed became just bit more dark when it dried and that subtle level of contrast was lost. I never saw this again in this work quite the same.