wish list

{^ Communion by Robert Hardgrave ^}

The Wish to be Generous
{Wendell Berry}

ALL that I serve will die, all my delights,
the flesh kindled from my flesh, garden and field,
the silent lilies standing in the woods,
the woods, the hill, the whole earth, all
will burn in man's evil, or dwindle
in its own age. Let the world bring on me
the sleep of darkness without stars, so I may know
my little light taken from me into the seed
of the beginning and the end, so I may bow
to mystery, and take my stand on the earth
like a tree in a field, passing without haste
or regret toward what will be, my life
a patient willing descent into the grass.

***********************************

I'm surely not the most well-read in art theory, and though I always have intentions of reading serious philosophy that grapples with Art-- the True, the Beautiful, Simulacra and Simulation-- I have lost focus time and again while struggling to navigate a stream that reaches as far back into time as writing itself. I admire those who have a handle on it. But I have been a maker for some time now, and a teacher, and have been in countless conversations about the purpose of art, the ancient and recent history of art institutions, shifting standards for excellence. My post about activist art has me back in the mind of it.

Words serve endless purposes, which we understand readily. Some words instruct, others warn, some form poems and others tell stories. The words we use every day have a wide range of emphasis and importance. They are tools for delivering meaning of every sort. Such is the case with images which act as visual language. The functions are as wide-ranging, and the success of an image has to be judged according to its context. So the question is: what do you want to say? It doesn't even have to be something you can reiterate in speech, but something that can only really be said in a way other than words.

I've painted ice cream cones and portraits and murals, have lettered signs and drawn maps and filled ridiculous acres of notebook margins with doodles. I've illustrated and designed for record labels and harpists and coffee shops and string quartets. But the work that I respond to most deeply, and that I aspire to make, puts form to something that has been sensed or felt, but not yet seen. While I really do admire the intentions of an artist who makes work to instruct people politically, socially, even spiritually, I have next to no desire to fashion work after that purpose. I like best when visual language is used as a philosophical tool-- to investigate realities and perceptions of the universe as seen through human eyes. And I love when beauty joins hands with tragedy, somehow... so that the result is more true than pretty. I like when absurdity is used well-- when a laugh is the most honest response. And I also like seeing something that at first appears ugly or malformed, but which slowly grows on you until it seems more beautiful than anything else.

Perhaps the best verbal parallel of the work I most want to make is certain types of poetry. Poems like the Wendell Berry one above encapsulate a metaphysical straining. They hint at a narrative-- a protagonist-- without needing a full arc of story. There are as many bad poems as bad paintings in the world, but when a good one hits, it hits hard.