"There seems to be no barrier between any one object and any other, just a continuous flow of life becoming art and vice versa"
-Donald Judd
"This nigh-mystical concept is a kind of Eamesian just rightness that arises organically from a series of patterns and activities set by nature that are allowed to generate structures of their own"
-Excerpt from The Longing For Less
"A lot of people will walk right by it and not know that's it. They stand in front of [The Earth Room] for ten to twenty-seconds gaze at the field of dirt, and wonder what they are missing instead of thinking about what's right in front of them. The reaction has something to do with our expectations that art should be readily apparent and distinct from the mundane world around it, or that it should offer up a message in the first place."
-Bill Dillworth
It's been a while since I have written.
Because writing about life or feelings or observations feels like trying to make something that is naturally messy and fluid into something neat and solid and that can feel odd.
A few years ago I did a bit of an overhaul on my life.
I think trying to simplify my life (i.e., zero waste, owning less, buying less , etc.) was my way of trying to, in a practical way, strive for selflessness.
I am speaking of selflessness as in a lessening of the distance.
I wrote a blog post about it over a year ago that goes more in depth about what I mean when I say "selfless" if you're curious. > Smoke and Mirrors <
I was trying to make a life that allowed grace to have space to be seen in it always. Even though grace is always in it, as is its nature.
( I understand "grace" to be the unselfconscious breathing life. Think dust motes in the early morning sun. Your favorite mug. Your unmade bed. Window panes in older houses. Or nature in general even.)
I didn't want to be ruled by my own discontent.
And I feel more discontent or disconnected the more out of context I feel.
Because I think a part of what grace is, is context.
Which leads me to another thing I have been contemplating.
As far as art goes I appreciate knowing about the artist's life.
I find the more I learn about a particular artist the more their art deepens for me.
Their art work stops being "pieces" and starts being a big thread of their life.
Ups and downs and different experiments and ideas.
Much like so many people and things in life.
Stories are my life's blood.
But I sometimes find myself using the "curation process" of simplifying my life as a way to make sure I myself take up as little space as possible.
To take up less resources. Take up as little of my body as possible. Take up less time. Take up less energy.
Take up less everything.
I think that I, unfortunately, learned early in my life the lie:
The moment you become "too much" is the moment you become unloved and unlovable.
In my head this lie pertains to me only.
I don't look out at any other person and think this is true.
And I don't know why I can't make myself un-believe it.
Maybe with time that will change. Maybe I will look over my life over the years and see the thread and all it's stitches and this will just be a few rough stitches in the line.
Most importantly,
I keep forgetting that"curation" is not a taking away of things it is the choosing of things.
The point of the space is not the emptiness, it is the potential of it.
The point is not to remove the content it is to allow freedom enough for you to see it as it is for you where you are.
The emptiness to witness how the context of your life plays out in front of you as art.
Whether they are real, fantasy, non-verbal or musical stories have taught me so much.
And slowly over time I've collected wisdom from so many different places people and times that if the lessons were put into a room, you might think they would clash but I think somehow they might manage to flow together rather gracefully.
(Vivian Maier)
Music to Breathe to:
Amazing. And I am so thankful you are writing again.
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