I am coming out of it, I can feel the air now, I am coming out of the depths.
I am painting only one thing for the rest of this month- the hill.
I shall post the products soon.
I love landscapes, I am drawn to the majesty of Ashland's own particular scape, and inside it I escape through brilliant colors and exagggerated form.
I always default back to landscapes when I feel lost or overwhelmed or scattered.
I am totally scattered right now. I need ground.
Thus The Hill.
Coming soon.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Inside
When one is tired enough, moving outdoors seems a tremendous strain. To pull oneself from the ease and musk of darkened corridors, or a flesh-worn couch, is like the rush of standing up too fast. It’s so easy to become accustomed to being enclosed, to habitually avoid the unreliability of an outside world and favor the familiarity of small rooms. It’s inside that one drowns in a tired loneliness, devastatingly mistaken for comfort and familiarity.
Inside I am free, I bustle, I clean; I follow routines. It’s easy here, where I paint, brew tea, sit for stretching hours in front of windows, laze about. I absorb myself within myself, and tired thoughts escape me, shaped like fantastical dreams. I use daydreaming to escape into a distortion of the void that I avoid. Envisioning acts within scenes, I construct fantasies that could only be completed outside of my comfortable tiredness. Dreams are the substitute for the missing component to my life indoors, and I long for a distorted reality in the most longingly way: fantasy.
Loneliness is not a burden once you have acclimated to it. It is a quiet stomach after prolonged starvation; hunger subsided. Ultimately, it becomes something not far from satisfying and one is tempted to wallow in it like a pig’s face in a trough. And though the art of being lonely is perfected after time, there is one constant flaw, the flaw that lures you into a state of curiosity and perhaps even action, in some cases. It is that uncontrollable temptation to drift into fantasy.
I would often lie heavily on my loose bed sheets in the morning, after I’d waken. Still and quiet near an open window, I drowned in a pool of sounds: birds, buzzing insects, the loudness of mowers and the repetitive sound of lawn sprinklers. This was routine, obsessively so. My mind would quiet and focus, my concentration heightened. I was aware of what was happening, but drowned in that awareness until what was real became my fancy. A soft focus, a fuzz, came over my eyes and though open I couldn’t see. I would dive into a buffered realm of fantastical deviance, of fantastical social superiority and sensation. This would last briefly, just until I began to thaw back into the obvious solitude that surrounded me. The grind and hum of the mowers came into me first and lifted me up to the cackle of the sprinklers followed by a rush of all sounds, like blood, theatrically to my head until I became tired again raised my feet heavily off the mattress and to the calling floor.
Loneliness only provokes longing. Solitude provokes desire. In loneliness one can be content, peaceful, thoughtful and creative. One can experience heightened awareness, or a deeper self-awareness, but these states are always distorted. The absence of sociality stunts one’s person and reverses the process in which one became a social being to begin with. But loneliness is comfortable, and poses no immediate threat. It is not intimidating and does not hurt right away. And so to fall into it, like and insomniac eventually falls into slumber, is almost like a trap: a comfortable, familiar, bear-trap.
Inside I am free, I bustle, I clean; I follow routines. It’s easy here, where I paint, brew tea, sit for stretching hours in front of windows, laze about. I absorb myself within myself, and tired thoughts escape me, shaped like fantastical dreams. I use daydreaming to escape into a distortion of the void that I avoid. Envisioning acts within scenes, I construct fantasies that could only be completed outside of my comfortable tiredness. Dreams are the substitute for the missing component to my life indoors, and I long for a distorted reality in the most longingly way: fantasy.
Loneliness is not a burden once you have acclimated to it. It is a quiet stomach after prolonged starvation; hunger subsided. Ultimately, it becomes something not far from satisfying and one is tempted to wallow in it like a pig’s face in a trough. And though the art of being lonely is perfected after time, there is one constant flaw, the flaw that lures you into a state of curiosity and perhaps even action, in some cases. It is that uncontrollable temptation to drift into fantasy.
I would often lie heavily on my loose bed sheets in the morning, after I’d waken. Still and quiet near an open window, I drowned in a pool of sounds: birds, buzzing insects, the loudness of mowers and the repetitive sound of lawn sprinklers. This was routine, obsessively so. My mind would quiet and focus, my concentration heightened. I was aware of what was happening, but drowned in that awareness until what was real became my fancy. A soft focus, a fuzz, came over my eyes and though open I couldn’t see. I would dive into a buffered realm of fantastical deviance, of fantastical social superiority and sensation. This would last briefly, just until I began to thaw back into the obvious solitude that surrounded me. The grind and hum of the mowers came into me first and lifted me up to the cackle of the sprinklers followed by a rush of all sounds, like blood, theatrically to my head until I became tired again raised my feet heavily off the mattress and to the calling floor.
Loneliness only provokes longing. Solitude provokes desire. In loneliness one can be content, peaceful, thoughtful and creative. One can experience heightened awareness, or a deeper self-awareness, but these states are always distorted. The absence of sociality stunts one’s person and reverses the process in which one became a social being to begin with. But loneliness is comfortable, and poses no immediate threat. It is not intimidating and does not hurt right away. And so to fall into it, like and insomniac eventually falls into slumber, is almost like a trap: a comfortable, familiar, bear-trap.
Postmodernism
In the present search for harmony, perhaps awkwardly at times, postmodern art strives for what is pure, yet raw and humanly relatable, what can serve a functional purpose and be readily accessible, and that which is self-critical and autonomous.
Alabama
During the time I spent in Opelika, Alabama, there is no easy way to describe the ease I felt. Moist and warm, the time there was like returning to a womb; a safe and a calm. I remember everything so vividly, it scares me because I don't remember anything so clear as I do that time. Melanie and I became kindred spirits. We practiced yoga, baked whole-wheat pitas, took trips to the gulf of Mexico together. We talked and talked and talked more, and took her kids to the library where I rummaged through the shelves, the music and movie selections. We rented Dark Crystal at least seventeen times over. I took runs in the rain, and learned to crochet. It was there that I first heard Radiohead's album "Amnesiac", one dark, still night on a couch. I was unable to sleep. It was thrilling and I couldn't close my eyes to the haunting sound in my ears or the blanketing darkness around me. It was also there where I first read the George Orwell masterpiece, 1984, and a condensed book of Shakespeare, which Daisha had given me years before, that I grew to adore . I remember writing poetry and reading poetic anthologies, tanning in the backyard amoung cedars and near a pasture, getting horribly bitten by the array of various insects that infest the south. I remember so many things from then that made me terribly happy, and make me terrible melancholy to think of now. I listened to Steely Dan, Diana Krall and Chris Issac. It was a time of peace and for peace; of mind, body, spirit. I can't think of more a release than when I let go in Alabama. I grew up in Alabama. I think of the time there as a century of thought, of brilliance, beauty, growth, humility, learning, love, and peace. I think of the weather there and I am happy. I think of the green and I am happy. I think of the stretching highways below brilliant thunderstormy sky, and I am happy.
I grew up there, and in that I am content.
I grew up there, and in that I am content.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Paintings
Here are some recent paintings, not my newest, or freshest, but these are some of the last developing stages to what I am doing now. I will post the fresh stuff soon.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
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