Dear Learners,
"The Eye is the First Circle."
I often wonder about her. She put up just six paintings for her show
(1978). I never actually saw her physically painting. She always worked
big and in a yellowed silence. Big silence. Big permanence. Where hurting
people commonly come to go, come and go. Why bring intentionality into it.
Reach, scope, stretch and touched feeling. She knew all about that. From
the silence point of view. Canvases of six foot by six foot. But for her
no wings, the still wheels of her spinning chair sufficient. I never saw
her leave. A funny kind of turning, that is spinning.
Hey! A little connecting let us do. Snip<>spin
Class Hierarchy Refactoring
OR
The Void...
(According to the works of C. Alexander is something)...€¦ which results
from periodic 'cleaning out' or 'self organizing'. Centers or groups of
centers will sometimes become too abundant/and/or too intense...€¦SNI...
¦Christmas night (of all nights) K was taken to the hospital where she was
diagnosed with a brain haemorrhage, now from the outside looking in, " She
(K) is in a state of rebellion? Anger? Hurt? Disenchantment? With all
ART...€¦it's foreign to her...€¦SPNI...€¦The resulting conglomeration
begins to look a little to chaotic or too busy (perhaps even
confusing)...€¦SNI...P€¦"She (K) doesn't yet know what has happened to
her. Like a child she feels she must start all over again from scratch,
Like an infant she must learn to walk, to relate, to be in the
world...€¦SPIN...€¦The Void is a kind of protective response, a placing of
homogeneous emptiness, clarifying smaller and less visible
centers...€¦SNIP...€¦Like an infant she knows nothing about ART, but must
familiarize herself with her own bone, body, her tongue and speech, people
and the world...€¦SPIN...€¦Some of the smaller centers are then
strengthened...€¦SNIP...€¦(ARE YOU DIZZY NOW?)...€¦SPIN...€¦K's period of
breakdown resulted in a change of direction which ironically matured when
later the same year she slipped, fell, and broke her right
arm...€¦SNIP...€¦SPINNINGIN...€¦SNIP...€¦leap (lower case)
to...€¦"simplicity and inner calm"
(C Alexander) cf. Elegance, Abstraction...€¦ LEAPING & BOUNDING...€¦
Though her painting arm was now in a caste she used the other to move it
as her fingers, still free held the tubes from which she drew her
colours;-) and in this manner she created 'Eyes in the Weeds', 'Happy
Lady', 'Flowering Limb', 'August Petals', and possibly 'Through Blue'. The
daughter of the woman who cleaned her studio gave these titles to K. she
explains, "This child didn't know what the word studio meant, nor had she
ever seen a tube of paint. She looked at the paintings in the studio and
said, That is a limb and it is flowering, she turned to another and said,
That's a lady and she is happy. I couldn't see a lady, let alone a happy
one, so I asked, Why do you say happy? She walked up the canvas and
pointed to the area and said, Don't you see she's dancing? Turning again
to another canvas with a disdainful gesture of her arm said, That's
nothing but a bunch of eyes in the weeds, So I titled it 'Eyes in the
Weeds'. After all, I painted these pictures, but her reading of them gave
me insight that both fascinated and alarmed me."
(All the events and paintings cited are by the great American painter Lee
Krasner, Jackson Pollock's partner;-)
And after the simplicity and calm? Not-Separateness...€¦ of course.
And for those working today with the quietness of brushes;-) What is a
tear but a cleaning out of that great and first circled lens...€¦LIFE?
"Don't go back to sleep."
Love,
Andrew
Andrew Campbell
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