A Message To The Artist
Talk through your art, not your arse.
To experience art is to journey into the soul of the artist, a journey which only the soul can take. Or greater, it is to travel into the soul of being, to experience oneness with reality itself, the reality in the real and of the real, otherwise only experienced through the things of the natural world.
Why do I talk as I do? I am the sum of all of my experiences, both sacred and profane, and talk and write as such. Being made of bits and scraps of this, that and the other, I appreciate the saying that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
As an adolescent, I asked my mother why are there two words meaning the same thing, real and reality. She replied that reality is the essence, the meaning of the real, and not the thing itself. Then why are the words treated as meaning the same thing, I asked.
I still await the answer.
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GLOSSARY: a vocabulary of words requiring special explanation: a dictionary.
ARSE: n. the posterior parts of an animal. adv. and adj. Arsy-versy, backside foremost: contrary. [A.S. ears; Ger. arsch, Sw. ars; cog. with Gr. orros.]
ARTIST: n. one who practices art.
PROFANE: .........v.t. to put to a wrong use: to pollute: to debase. n. profanation: a treating of anything with disrespect.
SACRED: .............adj. entitled to respect or veneration: devoted to destruction: set apart or dedicated, esp. to God:........
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Selections from my old dictionary.
I appropriate inappropriate language. Such words have been misappropriated, I return them as lambs to the fold. No word is inherently good or bad, but may be "put to a wrong use" or a right one.
David****
Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
The Truth Defined
(Refers to 'Talking To Myself' and 'The Truth Is Coming', which read for context.)
14th October, 2009.
(Peter, Van Gogh, Leonardo - note, your name is bracketed with the greats).
Peter,
You ask what is truth, pointing at the handle of a cup. What is the truth of that handle? The truth of that handle is the truth of all handles, that it possesses the quality of handleness. If it serves the function of being a handle, then it is true, then it is worthy of being called a handle. The truth must be put first, both by the designer and the maker, then it will serve its purpose, which is to satisfy the user. Its truth does not merely reside in the fact that it is (we have all seen bad handles). To be is to be true, all else is false.
The truth is all pervasive, and its other name is God. The denial of truth is the denial of God. Heaven in a grain of sand - William Blake. Inanimate objects, not man made, serve their purpose merely by being. We, however, are self aware and can choose, as Hamlet said, to be or not to be.
Our purpose is to serve the truth of being, by being true. True to the material from which we are formed, which is all we know and are, to find and seek the truth in our world and universe, and give expression to it in how we are and what we do and make, which is ultimately what we make of our lives. We choose how we are, what is immaterial, we may be a road sweeper.
Our true purpose is to serve the truth, by being a good cup handle, metaphorically speaking. When quality is put first, quantity is ennobled, and quality and quantity are one.
Everywhere, the truth is denied whereas the truth is the meaning in an apparently meaningless universe, of which we are a part. The truth is that which we must seek and seek to convey, in our words and actions. By being true to ourselves, we are true to others. Be true to your materials.
I hope this is of some use.
As an artist, you should be concerned with the bigger picture (joke, but many a true word is spoken in jest).
Everywhere, everything is treated as meaningless, but that is not to say that it is meaningless, merely that the truth is denied. Quality is treated as non-existent, whereas it is all we seek. The symbol is not the thing symbolised, but the truth is when they are one. We can but try.
Seek, and ye shall find. When a person goes to an art gallery, he is seeking truth, although he may not know it, in the form of a painting.
I got up out of bed to write this.
You ask a worthy question, the question of all questions, what is truth? The truth is not a what but rather a how, and the answer is when how and what are combined.
Next time, perhaps you will ask a greater question, why?
The answer will be one and the same, in so many words, in a manner of speaking.
Yours speechlessly,
David
PS I could have said, did you eat rat poison for your breakfast this morning? It would not have been true food if you did. Now you know what the truth is.
D
14th October, 2009.
(Peter, Van Gogh, Leonardo - note, your name is bracketed with the greats).
Peter,
You ask what is truth, pointing at the handle of a cup. What is the truth of that handle? The truth of that handle is the truth of all handles, that it possesses the quality of handleness. If it serves the function of being a handle, then it is true, then it is worthy of being called a handle. The truth must be put first, both by the designer and the maker, then it will serve its purpose, which is to satisfy the user. Its truth does not merely reside in the fact that it is (we have all seen bad handles). To be is to be true, all else is false.
The truth is all pervasive, and its other name is God. The denial of truth is the denial of God. Heaven in a grain of sand - William Blake. Inanimate objects, not man made, serve their purpose merely by being. We, however, are self aware and can choose, as Hamlet said, to be or not to be.
Our purpose is to serve the truth of being, by being true. True to the material from which we are formed, which is all we know and are, to find and seek the truth in our world and universe, and give expression to it in how we are and what we do and make, which is ultimately what we make of our lives. We choose how we are, what is immaterial, we may be a road sweeper.
Our true purpose is to serve the truth, by being a good cup handle, metaphorically speaking. When quality is put first, quantity is ennobled, and quality and quantity are one.
Everywhere, the truth is denied whereas the truth is the meaning in an apparently meaningless universe, of which we are a part. The truth is that which we must seek and seek to convey, in our words and actions. By being true to ourselves, we are true to others. Be true to your materials.
I hope this is of some use.
As an artist, you should be concerned with the bigger picture (joke, but many a true word is spoken in jest).
Everywhere, everything is treated as meaningless, but that is not to say that it is meaningless, merely that the truth is denied. Quality is treated as non-existent, whereas it is all we seek. The symbol is not the thing symbolised, but the truth is when they are one. We can but try.
Seek, and ye shall find. When a person goes to an art gallery, he is seeking truth, although he may not know it, in the form of a painting.
I got up out of bed to write this.
You ask a worthy question, the question of all questions, what is truth? The truth is not a what but rather a how, and the answer is when how and what are combined.
Next time, perhaps you will ask a greater question, why?
The answer will be one and the same, in so many words, in a manner of speaking.
Yours speechlessly,
David
PS I could have said, did you eat rat poison for your breakfast this morning? It would not have been true food if you did. Now you know what the truth is.
D
Sunday, November 22, 2009
How To Write
Write what you feel, how you feel, as you feel and you won't go far wrong. Style rests in choice of treatment and choice of subject matter. Choose a subject that appeals to you, suit your subject to your style and you will find that no subject escapes your pen. Writing is being, and as you are, so shall you write.
This is true of any art form, and writing is an art. Art is when the writer and the written are one, and the writer speaks from his soul. Do not be merely clever, or you may wind up being too clever by half.
Intelligence means nothing when not mediated through the soul. Intelligence is that through which we perceive, through the senses, and the brain is a muscle, a thing. The soul, in the Greek sense, is that through which we feel. The brain must be servant of the soul, not the other way around.
To be alive is to be intelligent, with all the senses awake and aware. The soul is of the spirit, the brain of the body. The artist sees through the eyes of the soul and speaks from there as well. He is responsive to feeling and responds to it and gives utterance to it in the form of his art.
The question for the artist, or would be artist, is not how to be, but rather how to feel. First, learn technique, the necessary prerequisite, then give vent to your feelings through the medium of your choice. Technique is a means, not an end. The end is feeling, as was the beginning.
True art begins and ends in inspiration. The artist must aspire, be inspired and produce inspiring work. (The purpose of art is to inspire. To inspire to what? To aspire to be inspired. True art makes artists of us all). Roll aside the stone of intelligence, of the senses, and allow your feelings to be, giving life to yourself and your art. Art is expressive of and is an expression of feeling. Re-awaken your feelings, your soul, and give expression to it.
Art is divination, seeing the truth, the essence, the spirit of its subject and is an expression of the soul of the artist, made up of those things as they relate to the subject. As Einstein said, everything is relative. The true artist relates the truth.
I could go on, I can't go on, I must go on. I'll stop here. Start here, in the eternal now.
Have you grasped the truth in your hand? Insubstantial, is it not? Give substance to it and you bring it to life. Life is when spirit and body are one, in you, in what you create and your life and your work are one and both a work of art. Dedication is required.
The barest minimum of learning through the intelligence is required, feeling is all, or very nearly all. Many great musicians cannot read music. Then, how do they do it? With feeling. On that note, a musical one, I end.
But not quite. Ponder these thoughts.
The truth, though imperfectly expressed, is still the truth.
Start before you are ready.
Baby's first attempt at speaking is intelligible only as an attempt, a worthy attempt, a feeling, an expression of feeling, a wish to communicate.
Practice makes perfect.
Every journey starts with a first step.
Now is always when.
The truth, when perfectly expressed, is irrefutable. That must be your objective, perfection itself.
(Forgive my impefections, see through and beyond).
Art is striving, but the strain must not show, edit it out.
I'll be with you in apple blossom time, Johnny Appleseed.
Reality is the essence of the real, art is when the real and reality are one. It is revelatory and a revelation, nothing less will do.
How you are what you are is what makes you an artist or a con-artist. Writing should be what you want to do, you should not wish to be a writer. (The writing comes first). As you do, so are you. By their works shall ye know them.
Writing is being to a writer, writing is when doing and being are one, the doing coming first. It is when the artist is at one with being itself, and the path is through feeling, feeling is the way.
Art is not a thing apart, everything man does is art when realised at its highest level. All may be artists, from road sweepers to kings and back again. What is true of writing is true of everything. When purpose is put first, rather than the person of the artist, art is.
An artist is one who sacrifices himself for this truth. True art is great art, at whatever level, in simplicity lies greatness. The word true is maligned and ignored as irrelevance when, in truth all relevance is relevant insofar as it is relevant to truth.
The truth is relevance itself.
The question how to be a writer, how to be an artist is answered with the question how to be. To be an artist, to be a writer, to be a road sweeper, to be a king is to be true or not to be at all.
The truth is the answer you were searching for, and the truth is a way, a way of being and doing, the form is immaterial. The truth lies within, it is not dead, but sleepeth.
Roll aside the rock of self and set the truth, which is your truth, free. It is yours and everyone else's as well, when you share it. The struggle of the artist is with himself. The self is a millstone around your neck or a milestone on the road to truth. The choice is yours.
An eight-year-old girl, when asked what she wanted to be when she grows up, said "I want to be me". You must lose yourself in order to find yourself.
Put purpose first or, in common parlance, put the job, the work you are doing first, and you are there.
The truth is when how, what, where, when, why and, last of all who are one in the truth, or, as I said in the first sentence, when the actor acts in accordance with true feeling in relation to all of the above.
Everything is relative.
To write is to be, to be is to write. We all write the story of our life, literally or metaphorically. "The moving finger writes and, having writ, moves on, nor all thy piety or wit can call it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it" - Omar Khayyam.
Luckily, in literal writing, we can edit, which is largely a matter, in art as in life, of simplification and deletion, a necessary task and a topic for another day.
David ****
This is true of any art form, and writing is an art. Art is when the writer and the written are one, and the writer speaks from his soul. Do not be merely clever, or you may wind up being too clever by half.
Intelligence means nothing when not mediated through the soul. Intelligence is that through which we perceive, through the senses, and the brain is a muscle, a thing. The soul, in the Greek sense, is that through which we feel. The brain must be servant of the soul, not the other way around.
To be alive is to be intelligent, with all the senses awake and aware. The soul is of the spirit, the brain of the body. The artist sees through the eyes of the soul and speaks from there as well. He is responsive to feeling and responds to it and gives utterance to it in the form of his art.
The question for the artist, or would be artist, is not how to be, but rather how to feel. First, learn technique, the necessary prerequisite, then give vent to your feelings through the medium of your choice. Technique is a means, not an end. The end is feeling, as was the beginning.
True art begins and ends in inspiration. The artist must aspire, be inspired and produce inspiring work. (The purpose of art is to inspire. To inspire to what? To aspire to be inspired. True art makes artists of us all). Roll aside the stone of intelligence, of the senses, and allow your feelings to be, giving life to yourself and your art. Art is expressive of and is an expression of feeling. Re-awaken your feelings, your soul, and give expression to it.
Art is divination, seeing the truth, the essence, the spirit of its subject and is an expression of the soul of the artist, made up of those things as they relate to the subject. As Einstein said, everything is relative. The true artist relates the truth.
I could go on, I can't go on, I must go on. I'll stop here. Start here, in the eternal now.
Have you grasped the truth in your hand? Insubstantial, is it not? Give substance to it and you bring it to life. Life is when spirit and body are one, in you, in what you create and your life and your work are one and both a work of art. Dedication is required.
The barest minimum of learning through the intelligence is required, feeling is all, or very nearly all. Many great musicians cannot read music. Then, how do they do it? With feeling. On that note, a musical one, I end.
But not quite. Ponder these thoughts.
The truth, though imperfectly expressed, is still the truth.
Start before you are ready.
Baby's first attempt at speaking is intelligible only as an attempt, a worthy attempt, a feeling, an expression of feeling, a wish to communicate.
Practice makes perfect.
Every journey starts with a first step.
Now is always when.
The truth, when perfectly expressed, is irrefutable. That must be your objective, perfection itself.
(Forgive my impefections, see through and beyond).
Art is striving, but the strain must not show, edit it out.
I'll be with you in apple blossom time, Johnny Appleseed.
Reality is the essence of the real, art is when the real and reality are one. It is revelatory and a revelation, nothing less will do.
How you are what you are is what makes you an artist or a con-artist. Writing should be what you want to do, you should not wish to be a writer. (The writing comes first). As you do, so are you. By their works shall ye know them.
Writing is being to a writer, writing is when doing and being are one, the doing coming first. It is when the artist is at one with being itself, and the path is through feeling, feeling is the way.
Art is not a thing apart, everything man does is art when realised at its highest level. All may be artists, from road sweepers to kings and back again. What is true of writing is true of everything. When purpose is put first, rather than the person of the artist, art is.
An artist is one who sacrifices himself for this truth. True art is great art, at whatever level, in simplicity lies greatness. The word true is maligned and ignored as irrelevance when, in truth all relevance is relevant insofar as it is relevant to truth.
The truth is relevance itself.
The question how to be a writer, how to be an artist is answered with the question how to be. To be an artist, to be a writer, to be a road sweeper, to be a king is to be true or not to be at all.
The truth is the answer you were searching for, and the truth is a way, a way of being and doing, the form is immaterial. The truth lies within, it is not dead, but sleepeth.
Roll aside the rock of self and set the truth, which is your truth, free. It is yours and everyone else's as well, when you share it. The struggle of the artist is with himself. The self is a millstone around your neck or a milestone on the road to truth. The choice is yours.
An eight-year-old girl, when asked what she wanted to be when she grows up, said "I want to be me". You must lose yourself in order to find yourself.
Put purpose first or, in common parlance, put the job, the work you are doing first, and you are there.
The truth is when how, what, where, when, why and, last of all who are one in the truth, or, as I said in the first sentence, when the actor acts in accordance with true feeling in relation to all of the above.
Everything is relative.
To write is to be, to be is to write. We all write the story of our life, literally or metaphorically. "The moving finger writes and, having writ, moves on, nor all thy piety or wit can call it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it" - Omar Khayyam.
Luckily, in literal writing, we can edit, which is largely a matter, in art as in life, of simplification and deletion, a necessary task and a topic for another day.
David ****
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Fragments
Fragments of thought and feeling, that is what this piece is composed of. I thought or felt several things and wondered were they suitable to write, and regretted when I had let the feelings go that I had not written them, so I write this now, as I feel, what I feel.
I attended Elisabeth Petcu's exhibition on the opening day, it was a great success. Paintings, drawings, sculpture and music, all from the one hand. I bought a bird whistle, ten euros, which has, as I said in the visitors' book, a charming simplicity. I will go back to the gallery and buy another for my sister, Storyteller, who loves simple things.
Elisabeth has given me great encouragement with my writing, saying of my 'How To Write' piece 'David's piece brought tears to my eyes, I'm going to print it out and read it many times'. At the exhibition, she again complimented me, and said she saw parallels with music in what I had written. I said 'All art comes from the same source'.
There was not much time to talk with her, there were so many people there. Many pieces were sold before the opening talk, given by my sister, 'Girlie', who spoke off the cuff, having lost her notes and, as I said to her, all the better for that. Yesterday she told me 'They ran out of sold stickers' so many pieces were sold.
The exhibition is at the Kilternan Gallery, a really nice and charming little venue in county Wicklow. Elisabeth had a high position in the R.T.E. symphony orchestra, being chief flautist. She has only recently taken up the visual arts, including pottery and sculpture, which she mixes to great effect.
I remarked to Girlie, I hope she does not get any better at it, becoming 'sophisticated' and losing her gift of simplicity, which lends her work its charm.
This piece has the appearance of a letter, and is by way of experiment, merely writing as I said, as I feel, how I feel, what I feel. We must relearn how to feel and give expression to our feelings, helping to banish unfeelingness from an unfeeling world.
David
I attended Elisabeth Petcu's exhibition on the opening day, it was a great success. Paintings, drawings, sculpture and music, all from the one hand. I bought a bird whistle, ten euros, which has, as I said in the visitors' book, a charming simplicity. I will go back to the gallery and buy another for my sister, Storyteller, who loves simple things.
Elisabeth has given me great encouragement with my writing, saying of my 'How To Write' piece 'David's piece brought tears to my eyes, I'm going to print it out and read it many times'. At the exhibition, she again complimented me, and said she saw parallels with music in what I had written. I said 'All art comes from the same source'.
There was not much time to talk with her, there were so many people there. Many pieces were sold before the opening talk, given by my sister, 'Girlie', who spoke off the cuff, having lost her notes and, as I said to her, all the better for that. Yesterday she told me 'They ran out of sold stickers' so many pieces were sold.
The exhibition is at the Kilternan Gallery, a really nice and charming little venue in county Wicklow. Elisabeth had a high position in the R.T.E. symphony orchestra, being chief flautist. She has only recently taken up the visual arts, including pottery and sculpture, which she mixes to great effect.
I remarked to Girlie, I hope she does not get any better at it, becoming 'sophisticated' and losing her gift of simplicity, which lends her work its charm.
This piece has the appearance of a letter, and is by way of experiment, merely writing as I said, as I feel, how I feel, what I feel. We must relearn how to feel and give expression to our feelings, helping to banish unfeelingness from an unfeeling world.
David
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