Once again, back to the transparencies of the imaginaries... I continue to be fascinated by transparency, the piercing through color in painting, matter in sculpture, light in photography. In writing maybe to find and anchor change. If only for a moment. As I remember, it started way back in high school with the readings of magical realism. Later and consistently it became my own with the weird writings that I did not quite understand where they came from. Then with the mixing of pigments in water color and in drawing - the strong emotional moment when I saw through a dogwood bloom and color no longer existed as a flat surface, it was pure shifting light! Photography then drew me in for that split second when the real revealed itself. This is another transparency text I wrote years ago, around 2007, when everything changed.
What I see are large shapes like the ones I saw once at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington – two to three meters high bronzed reddish brown rounded smooth polished figures, arranged across a lobby made out of steel and glass, at intervals, staggered abstract sentinels. As if they were staggered dominoes, just before the fall.
(Footnote 1)
Then we take a glance across the shapes and they become transparent – we see through them. We see through the heart of the matter. In a way, we bypass the solid matter of static statue and enter another state. In a way, we no longer see the bronze solid matter because we see and accept the surroundings to the matter. We zoom in and we background. We accept a state of harmony where matter disappears. Or maybe also the staggered shapes topple over each other and make space, at the thought of so much tweaking with matter, molecules re-arranged (like in a “cure”), the wings of a butterfly, in China a tsunami...
When we talk cell talk, or dream talk, membranes surround impulses – in a similar way, we have relationships, bare touchings and intermeshed membranes in bubbles where connotations reside. Meshing and weaving of mylar – meshing and weaving of silver armored plate to plastic tubing. Sheila talked about how her hands hurt from doing so. (Footnote 2) She is working toward a “life size” structure/sculpture/painting where you enter that space. I think of/remember the marriage of home made black lace to high steel technology made inside assembly lines in factories. The base sculpted with meshed tweaked metal where seedpods , cocooned galls from tiny wasps, festooned in kokopelli costumes rest lightly and play. A commonality of imagination.
Transparencies as the thresholds we always have aspired to cross, as the touch of ivy and the imprint of blue hand at the entrance, the healing of the wound, the adventure on to what is beyond. It is like in a way, defiance of rules, and it is the first love, the lingering sensations.
It is like imagination run amok and welcomed there in the amok. It is discovering the new, when we take a step on to the void, the last step on the stairway in the dark, and we find what was not there before. the space all of a sudden filled with a presence.
Well, if you run it backwards, in a series of paratactic takes, like in cinema, if you run your machine backwards, you then achieve the same end result – you make it disappear – it becomes transparent. Transparency then is tweaking with our deeply ingrained narrow sense of time and space.
The words to describe it come from everywhere – these days, for me – from every science and art and person and activity – every line is an opposite line, the shadow image – the mirror holds images in opposites, yes, but not necessarily so. – it is a Nepalese prayer flag flying in the garden – there, with many people present inside the colors and you are no longer alone.
It takes a bit of a brave soul to accept this unceasing movement – this eternity of motion – it takes a bit of crazy to continue on exploring this, without regard to public opinion. (Footnote 3) But it seems to me it is easier to explore this when I can touch my exploration. Architects are dreamers of the highest order. Architects of words are dreamers too. To explore meanings with the most unyielding of all tools – words. Even connotations are set in concrete, once uttered. I guess, concrete for the builder, is set in concrete, once poured. Sheila talks about the stone sculptures in Scotland – the angles of the spirals of sunlight across life on earth – she talks about the measures of angles in Chaco Canyon, where a friend of hers wrote, filmed and produced a documentary about the Anasazi (Footnote 4) extraordinary ways. The shapes that guide my hand, the choice of words that guide my connotation layers in meaning – those are the guidelines, the architectural lines that any society follows. And my understanding of those is a gift, and a somewhat rare one. We often talk about ALL having creative gifts in them. Yes, and yet, this is a strange way to foreground – it intersects with “society” and is not quite part of it – never really was. Once, a friend of mine told me carpentry, fine work with wood, was very forgiving to missed steps and missed takes. And he told me he was good at working through those and fixing them. And I said, I rather work with words that I can erase – then in doing so, make transparent. Memory has a lot to do with transparency. Short-term memory creates some shapes, maybe more tight shapes, more solid shapes (society shapes?) – while older memories accept metaphors and change and take ambiguities easier (shadow shapes?). To me, this is why life is worth living! It is why life is fun and sad and good and bad. and from the interior, there rises a gush of no rhyme and no reason! three names or more come out of this joseph brodsky a poet italo calvino and jose saramago, writers john cage and older women seeking (Footnote 5) For more ramblings there is this post about Crystal and flame, where I try to talk about sympathy with your materials as harmony. Footnotes 1. I researched bronze sculptures at the museum for quite a while, and did not find the dream match for my images in the steel and glass lobby. I found Barbara Hepworth and her figures in landscape, as a permanent fixture in the gardens. 2. I do not remember Sheila’s last name but I remember she told me she had lived in France and was in D.C. for an exhibit. I found Sheila Hicks instead, and her magnificent textile sculptures. https://www.moma.org/artists/2631. See also https://www.moma.org/collection/works/189088 3. I have just finished reading Jeffrey Kripal's - "The Super natural: why the unexplained is real" and recommend it strongly to anyone who wishes to explore and understand a rational approach from inside academia to what is considered by many as the impossible. 4. A link to Anna Sofaer's documentary film "The Sun Daegger": https://solsticeproject.org/the-sun-dagger/ A brief PBS segment about Chaco Canyon, where roads were created not for commerce, not to transport merchandise, but to channel energy... ?/?? https://video.pbsnc.org/video/anna-sofaer-tkocpx/
5. I have no idea why I chose Joseph Brodsky, then. Maybe because of his rebellious, apolitical stance… Italo Calvino, of course, was always talking about light and transparencies. Jose Saramago and John Cage were wonderful recent discoveries. My interest in Older Women Seeking continues to be fine tuned with ageing!
And yes, the photos are mine, or rather I captured them in space, except for the museum bronze sculpture.
Enjoy!
I think this happens beyond our consciousness -- or at least, usually, beyond mine. But, there are flashes of realization. Like maybe when the green of the trees suddenly goes vibrant, or sunlight and shadows become dancers. "Transparency then is tweaking with our deeply ingrained narrow sense of time and space." <-- this helps me understand. It takes practice, and patience.
Extraordinary photographs in Crystal and Flame!