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Good art begins with very simple, prelocutic archetypal motives, propagating into such complexity as to be nearly chaos, resimplifying through brutal critique into something beautiful. Sometimes. Realism as an artistic style is the strongest: most universal, multidimensional, visceral. It is our common language. Styles that stray far from it lose much of their aesthetic potential. Yet, too much information becomes distracting noise, and beyond the medium's usefulness for genuine communication, subjectivity is all. So much modern art fails, given instead to perceptual contortions and novelties. The near universal tragedy of public art (yes, I have an axe to grind, here) is based more in each selection committee’s fear of offending anyone with anything representational, than with beautifying public space. Within the blur of change brought by our technocracy, many a clichéd idea gathers value for assessing new terrain. SoI don't think validation is really an issue with mythic themes, whose memes have all but carried our cultural evolution. The causal parallelism between material, cognitive, spiritual vectors allows for so many layers of symbol and communication. Conception of divine truth from the earliest times must have been beyond strange, for the mind has evolved toward reason through eons of mutation. Unless one believes singularly in Jehovah or the Greys, in which case such validation is forgone. I never had the easy convictions of those untroubled by knowledge of their own ignorance. Nor, more than any, the time enough to fully study a choice before it’s taken or evaporates. How long it took me, to understand the sweet spot in the learning curve, where any more preparation for probable contingencies is proved futile by unexpected consequences, and conversely reliance on spontaneous adaptability shows itself so much costlier than an ounce of prevention. But this learning curve must be pushed forward, for as the Zarathusrta would say, ‘The Doer alone Learneth.’ Well enough to mull over my coffee, trying to rebuild the foundations of philosophy from the ether, over and over, truths neither unique nor predictable. And the works demanded of their logical conclusions, neither easy nor difficult, simple or complex. But must be done, for knowledge without implementation is but mere vanity. And when something Real is actually accomplished, to ask again, what is this new horizon? Who am I to stand before it? Such questions of identity are easiest to answer from a social, relative context. And not inaccurately, we being links in our species, augmented profoundly with a mote of awareness. Robert Graves proposed that true belief required an isolated fellowship. Thus the irony in looking for Truth from many paths, to gain a whole understanding. So rarely do those who seek enlightenment from the myriad colorful paths life presents, come away with something useful. I measure their enlightenment by their actions, or rather their lack of. Though the tide of technocracy seems to dwarf all other changes, its drive to hedonist oblivion purges itself as fast as it births each new fad. To kill a person or neutralize them with a lifetime squandered in synthetic fantasies, little practical difference exists besides resource consumption. It is the pinnacle of western achievement, that the last generation should spend itself on world of warcraft, eh? That’s the culmination of secular humanism, the self defeating pursuit of happiness. Not so much a Koyaanisqatsi ( a way of life demanding a new way of life) but a new way of life being replaced by older ways of life. To look at the population numbers, in America it will be Mormons and Pentecostals. (And Clevon, from Idiocracy). So if we survive the Butlerian Jihad, huzzah for the Bene Gesserit. I enjoyed some fine tonic for the idiocies of secular humanism in Nietszche’s Z, who said we ‘should love peace as a means to new wars, and the short peace more than the long.’ But, a war of creation, as all life is at war. Is it not so? Consider a peaceful forest glade: what compassion hath the oak for its offspring, starving for light? Only in death, this gift. More gently put by Tolkein , the catholic author of beautiful antediluvian pantheons ; ‘As we are made in the image of our Creator, shall we not also create?” A recurring vergence here, between humanism and monotheism, that we as a species hold up a higher standard, a moral duty to compassion and individual rights. Even seen from the perspective of an atheist evolutionary biology, this standard retains its value. Thus I come to see little argument between these basic paradigms, and steer clear of the minutae that catches up so many in needless, wasteful conflicts based more in pride or economic inequality than on theology anyway. At the same time I take up the opposite stance, and call myself post Unitarian, post humanist. For it is chiefly the pure, myopic beliefs of fundamentalists with unwavering certainty in their rightness, whose conviction to a course hard against the current , that brings or thwarts social change. Here I close this triangle, calling this fanaticism by another name, Will to Power. It parts with humanism, for who are the Ubermensch but those chosen by God? But woe to the rest, the unchosen and invalid who yet retain the limitless potential of all sentient beings. I don’t even trust Time to give closure to this ‘trialectic’, since every tier of hindsight will bring new reversals. Turning back to the topic of art, I want to say the anachronous motif among my work is incidental, since the most potent nodes of emotional truth occur over the whole length of history. But time has a way of washing away the trivia. The act of remembering etches a memory the louder. Changed with remembering, so less exact, but maybe better than exact. A thing which in its own time was camouflaged by the noise of like things becomes a thing half buried in compost, and the smell of such compost becomes part of its character. A thirst for understanding is whetted by the strangeness of the most primitive and the most advanced, laying a course for hermeneutic symbolism in art. How is Tolkien different from Terry Brooks? The best art does not contain meaning, but is contained by it. Carrying through the Promethean labours of my art through the dark years required a toolbox of other’s mantras: Fool! if you were going to do something with your life, do it now. You are soon going to die, and each day is one that cannot ever be replaced.
We try to walk on water because we can't stand to walk on land. For my teachers and muses, an acknowledgement of my debt: To Bernini, Borromini and the named and nameless sculptors of antiquity, pioneering the horizons of an art radiant with meaning, etched into the macrocosm. And to so many strewn through more recent history, Mucha, Parrish, Rackham, Blake and those crazy pre-Raphaelites. Baron Johann, whose PU-238 Destructive Space Modulator, Dwarvencraft Graviton Propagator and vacuum former have enabled a profusion, a torrent of art. To Pegi, Ray, Zac, Lothair, Dolce, Chuck, Barb, Ciara, Death, Ann, Paul, Guy, Erin and the many friends who gave their time and sometimes their blood to see these projects through, may the karma of your toils come back to you in abundance, with a joyous cry of Doom. Tomak |
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