Side By Side

At the beginning of the year I asked three questions. This post attempts to address two of these questions (see below).

1. The absence of an explicitly planned outcome means that an unconscious element is at play. Yet, how deep is this connection to the unknown and what is its relation to a wider collective unconscious?

2. While mysteries are uncovered, are they substantial? Do they extend beyond the small mysteries of how a picture comes together (i.e. in a way that is slightly different than the creator would expect)?

Over the past couple months, I worked on a drawing where my mind was both engaged in the artistic process and focused on these self prescribed questions. My growing understanding is that the answer to the questions above are felt and exist on a middle path. In eastern philosophy there is a way of dealing with paradox and seemingly intractable problems by finding what is called the “middle path”. To accept a yes/no (i.e. boolean) answer to a multifaceted and speculative problem is not possible, yet there is a solution. The solution is not to seek more facile words. Rather, the answer is to look for a means to eclipse the contradiction. This is perhaps where art can be most relevant because its primary function is to display something that words alone can not full-fill (this would include poetry which uses words but grasps at a vision beyond one dimensional meanings).

What is felt, intuitive, and unconscious surrounds this path, because it deals with the unknown. While interpreting the realm of dreams has merits, it can also reveals the limitations of summary description.  We begin to see patterns of formulaic conclusions (e.g. the dream is about loss, fear, a hint at the future etc.).  If we only look at where the unconscious intersects with the conscious, it will remain shallow. However, where the dream is unpredictable and varied is in the texture of its details and its relationship to a wider context. Likewise, one can not merely look at the material surface of art to find its depth. Art has a middle path. Descriptive words alone are not expansive enough. The texture, form, and trace of action point to something timeless. Without the skills to realize a middle path one skips the ability to see alternatives, additionally there is little chance to know the smell of roses.

In a global way, what we gain from a perspective that has more than two sides and is not neatly summarized is a more genial and attentive society.