"After all, works of art are always the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, to where no one can go any further. The further one goes, the more private, the more personal, the more singular an experience becomes, and the thing one is making is, finally, the necessary, the irrepressible, and, as nearly as possible, definitive utterance of this singularity...Therein lies the enormous aid the work of art brings to the life of the one who must make it, —: that is its his epitome; the knot in the rosary at which his life says a prayer, the ever-returning proof to himself of his unity and genuine-ness, which presents itself only to him while appearing anonymous to the outside, nameless, as mere necessity, as realty, as existence-." -Rilke
PAUL KLEE - ORGANIC GERMINATION OF FORM
From Paul Klee's Journal, November 27, 1923:
"The ultimate flowering of ornament is precisely such an end, arising on the basis of what is supposed to have happened, which one should not tackle directly, in my searching view of form-production. Instead, it is an end one should allow to grow, like the natural process, as the result of form-determining activities. Here too is is the act of forming rather than the form itself, form in the process of growth, as genesis, rather than as the ultimate appearance."
From Klee’s ‘The Nature of Nature’":
"Creative power is ineffable. It remains ultimately mysterious. And every mystery affects us deeply. We are ourselves charged with this power, down to our subtlest parts. We may not be able to utter its essence, but we can move towards its source, insofar as at all possible. In any event, it is up to us to manifest this power in its functions, just as it becomes manifest within ourselves."
magnolias and form
"Everything vanishes around me, and works are born as if out of the void. Ripe, graphic fruits fall off. My hand has become the obedient instrument of a remote will." -Paul Klee
Rilke spring
"Somehow I too must find a way of making things; not plastic, written things, but realities that arise from the craft itself. Somehow I too must discover the smallest constituent element, the cell of my art, the tangible immaterial means of expressing everything..."
-Rainer Maria Rilke, to Lou Andreas-Salomé, from 'Letters on Cézanne'
spring dreaming
ASCENDING. Towards wholeness. A cyclical returning.
roots
To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.
-Simone Weil
I miss this place. Deepest roots I have - sacred ground.
I miss the ocean
The ocean is deathless
The islands rise and die
Quietly come, quietly go
A silent swaying breath
I wish the idea of time would drain out of my cells and leave me quiet even on this shore
-Agnes Martin
M.E.Morris, 'Aquinnah', Martha's Vineyard, MA, July 2016
Agnes Martin, Imogen Cunningham
I have been contemplating these passages from Martin, as well as the images of Cunningham, and reflecting on what is it that coerces form from my hand. It feels completely visceral, intrinsic, sacred, yet ultimately ineffable. I see it mirrored in the creations of nature. I see my freedom in my forms. I see freedom in creation, and in that freedom I see truth and connection.
"When I think of art I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye it is in the mind. In our mind there is awareness of perfection."
"Say to yourself, I am going to work in order to see myself and free myself while working and in the work. I must be alert to see myself in the work - when I see myself in the work, I will know it is the work I am supposed to do."
"Artwork is a representation of our devotion to life." -Agnes Martin
Imogen Cunningham
Imogen Cunningham
M.E.Morris, Winter Tulips, NYC, 2016
'The Art Spirit'
A beautiful exposition of what drives authentic creativity,
"There is an UNDERCURRENT, the real life, beneath all appearances everywhere...It is this sense of the persistent life force back of things which makes the eye see and the hand move in ways that result in true masterpieces. Techniques are thus created as a need...All outward success, when it has value, is but the inevitable result of an inward success of full living, full play and enjoyment of one's faculties...." (Henri, 92-92).
"But there is another deeper change in progress. It is of long, steady persistent growth, very little affected and not at all disturbed by surface conditions. The artist today should be ALIVE TO THIS DEEPER EVOLUTION on which all growth depends, has depended and will depend...It is in search of fundamental principle; that basic principle of all, which in degree as it is apprehended points the way to beauty and order, and to the law of nature" (Henri, 94).
On appreciating art, and the imperative of engaging with it, grappling with it, showing up for it..
"The appreciation of art should not be considered as merely a pleasurable pastime. To appreciate beauty is to work for it. It is a mighty and entrancing effort, and the enjoyment of a picture is not only in the pleasure it inspires, but in the comprehension of the new order of construction used in its making."
'The Art Spirit', by Robert Henri
I have been reading this The Art Spirit by Robert Henri (very) slowly, and transcribing passages I find particularly inspiring. I feel like I have an ally in my process in this book and it is a comfort and an encouragement.
“There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual-become clairvoyant…At such times there is a song going on within us, a song to which we listen. It fills us with surprise. We marvel at it. We would continue to hear it. But few are capable of holding themselves in the state of listening to their own song. Intellectuality steps in and as the song within us is of the utmost sensitiveness, it retires in the presence of the cold, material intellect…Yet we living in the memory of these songs which in moments of intellectual inadvertence have been possible to us. They are the pinnacles of our experience and it is the desire to express these intimate sensations, this song from within, which motivates the masters of great art.” (Henri, 44-45)
“Every moment in nature is orderly, one thing the outcome of another, a matter of constructive, growing force. We live our lives in tune with nature when we are happy, and all our misery is the result of our effort to dictate against nature.” (Henri, 50)
“The mind is a tool, it is either clogged, bound, rusty, or it is a clear way to and from the soul. An artist should not be afraid of his tools. He should not be afraid to know.” (Henri, 54).
About art works that continue to draw us in: “There is a life stirring in them.” (Henri, 66)
“All manifestations of art are but but landmarks in the progress of the human spirit toward a thing but as yet sensed and far from being possessed. The man who has honesty, integrity, the love of inquiry, the desire to see beyond, is ready appreciate good art.” (Henri, 66)
“Art is the inevitable consequence of growth and is the manifestation of the the principles of its origin.” (67)
“Art need not be intended. It comes inevitably as the tree from the root, the branch from the trunk, the blossom from the twig. none of these forget the present in looking backward or forward. They are occupied wholly with the fulfillment of their own existence. The branch does not boast of the relation it bears to its great ancestor the trunk, and does not claim attention to itself for this honor, nor does it call your attention to the magnificent red apple it is about to bear. Because it is engaged in the full plan of its own existence, because it is full in its own growth, its fruit is inevitable.” (67-68).
GEORGIA
"Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. it is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis that we get to the real meaning of things."
-Georgia O'Keefe
In reading about O'Keefe, I am struck by her description of abstraction as "the most definite form for the intangible thing in myself." She is described as in being in a constant search for "the feeling of infinity" in nature, and a deep spiritual dimension to her work and her artistic transformation is noted. She writes of this, "When I stand alone with earth and sky a feeling of something in me going off in every direction into the unknown of infinity means more to me than any organized religion gives me."
I feel a vibration with O'Keefe's work, perhaps because of her deep reverence for and connection to nature and spirit, and her understanding of their inherent connection.
'Art and Fear'
Some brief passages from this short work by Ted Orlando and David Bayles.
"Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult."
-Hippocrates (460-400 B.C.)
"...In large measure becoming an artist consists in learning to accept yourself, which makes your work more personal, and in following your own voice, which makes your work distinctive.
Something about making art has to do with overcoming things, giving us clear opportunity for doing things in ways we have always known we should do them.
The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars. One of the basic a difficult lessons every artist must learn is that even the failed pieces are essential.
...you learn how to make your work by making your work
"Artists don't get down to work until the pain working is exceeded by the pain of not working."
-Stephen DeStaebler
Basically, those who survive as an artist are those who have learned how to continue-or more precisely, have learned not to quit. Quitting is fundamentally different from stopping. The latter happens all the time. Quitting happens once. Quitting means not starting again-and art is all about starting again."
'The Art Work'
In working at the Harvard Bookstore, I am granted access to renting books out-and this one jumped out at me. A Harvard Divinity School professor, Jackson's "The Art Work" is a brilliant if dense academic perspective on religion and art making. It is full of spirit and food for thought.
"This process of alter-ation or existential transformation involves endless essays in striking a balance between being an actor and being acted upon...Rather than suffering our situations in solitude and silence, art, ritual and storytelling enable us to change the ways that our situations appear to us; we thereby come to feel that we possess some degree of free will, that the future is open rather than closed to us, and that our existence matters. In effect, we give birth to ourselves as proactive rather than merely passive participants in a shared world...
Art, sociality, and religion involve a negotiation between accepting at face value the social situations, aesthetic styles, normative values, and raw materials that are given to us and actively making something uniquely satisfying to ourselves out of these givens...
Like a sacrifice to the ancestors, an appeal to a divinity, a ritual to bring rain, a magnanimous gesture, or a conscientious act of parenting, the origins of a work of art cannot be fully fathomed....
...the meaning of all human experience remains ambiguous, containing within it both the seeds of its own comprehensibility and nuances and shadings that go beyond what can be comprehensively thought or said...
...the human well-being depends on a person's relationship with or connectedness to an 'elsewhere' or 'otherness' lying beyond the horizons of her own immediate lifeworld.
What is at play here is a struggle to bring some semblance of continuity, comprehension, and control to a person's relationship with known forces, both within and without.
...life is a continual interplay between what is latent (inchoate and invisible) and what is apparent (articulated and embodied)...
...that art, religion, ritual, dance and song are not essentially different phenomena but modalities, methods, or moments in which something hidden within is made manifest."
-M. Jackson, The Art Work