the red threads continue with these self-evident truths.
one) collaboration reflects the desire to engage and create together on the path of the heart. lone artists emerge and merge—the one to the many, the individual to the collective, a meeting of organisms and life energies.
two) collaboration is non-hierarchical and anarchic. there are no rules but yes. acceptance, allowance and non-judgment flow. isolation and atomization transform to cooperation and mutual aid. intention and e/motion mix with paint into action. we challenge each other to unattachment—to destroy the image with no repercussions. cell division and cell death. expansion and contraction. life to death to life. forever changes. appreciation of and gratitude for what emerges and will only emerge from paint on paint destruction and creation. togetherness supports the dissolution of ego (I) and the emergence of the sum is greater than the parts—a dynamic unity, swarming vibrating spiritus, a synergy of collective desire, a fusion of beings.
three) the paintings are rooted with an intention. the composition of a painting is an emergent property, a functional growth and fruition, of the intention. intentions relate to our individual/collaborative journey of becoming which is a part of the collective journey of becoming and includes social and political events; grief and praise of people and other creatures; varieties of consciousness/unconsciousness; feeling the universal emotions of happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, disgust and anger; times of ecstatic expansion/connection and times of hopeless contraction/disconnection. these authentic life experiences are manifest in the paint.
four) we paint from a somatic, visceral and spiritual source. the paintings are made with an awareness to body, breath, sensation, feeling and life energy. we paint from a resonance with our immediate surroundings and our cosmic surroundings and with a felt sense of the pulsation from the outside in and from the inside out.
five) art is real and natural and not ideal or metaphysical. the paintings are as uncertain, clear, mysterious, vital and fully realized as life itself. the paintings are kin to cave paintings and rock art and represent timeless innovations and styleless styles. each painting is a meeting in the middle as epic as the force of now. each painting is a sacred power object, a portal, a scape, a prayer, a ring shout, a howl.
six) the paintings offer an opportunity for experience from observation to participation. a relationship and an interconnectedness is formed however gigantic or tiny. there is no right/wrong experience or interpretation. the paintings, like the elements and existence, assert their essence unequivocally.
seven)
the painter is fierce and unrelenting.
the red threads—summer 2015
prayer for civilization—origin myth portland, oregon, summer 2012
sources : inspiration
In all the arts, and especially in music, every method that arises from an inner necessity is right…The correspondence of the means of expression with inner necessity is the essence of beauty in a work.
—Thomas de Hartmann
∞
I have never approached painting with the idea that there has to be a beautiful end product. If beauty can be said to exist in a work I would consider it more a by-product. I would prefer to think of it in terms of a spiritual experience for some people.
—Richard Allen
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Collaborate with life!
—Henry Miller
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Anything you do will be an abuse of somebody else's aesthetics.
—Robert Rauschenberg
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The true artist always refuses to conform to any standards other than his/her own.
--Adolph Gottlieb
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The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects “unfamiliar,” to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged.
—Victor Shklovsky
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Art is not to be looked at. Art is looking at us. What is art to others is not necessarily art to me. Nor for the same reason and vice versa. What was art to me or was not some time ago might have lost that value or gained it in the meantime and maybe again though art is not an object but experience. To be able to perceive it we need to be receptive. Therefore art is there where art meets us now.
—Joseph Albers
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What I feel when I’m playing guitar is completely cold and crazy. Like I don’t owe nobody nothing and it’s a test just to see how far I can relax into the cold wave of a note, when everything hits just right (just and right) the note of nobility can go on forever. I never tire of the solitary E and I trust my guitar and I don’t care about anything. Sometimes I feel like I’ve broken through and I’m free and could dig into eternity riding the wave and the realm of the E…
—Patti Smith