In the past few years a cadre of insights regarding existence and the nature of Creation has brought about in me a new sense of awareness and I've been moved to paint, and write, to share my experience as an artist, in the hope that what I have seen will be as much of a value to others as it has been to me.
For me then, a textbook or academic understanding of inspiration never could replace the experience of working creatively, while earnestly studying and working independent of what I learned in the academy has brought about a keener perception of life and especially, its hidden characteristics.
In painting (and poetry), I encounter opportunities to bring these unobservable matters to the senses, and as I grow as an artist I find my senses are not the obstruction to spirituality I once felt, and are not only to be appreciated and enjoyed, but are a means to spiritual insight. And the more daily existence becomes sensationalized, engagement in creating art assumes the leading role of magnifying and perfecting this.
Seemingly, art has the propensity to cultivate the seeds of perfection that exist in each of us, and as I work I become aware that remaining independent of the influences of convention allows unobstructed growth for each of us and our exceptional potentials. One such sprig of awareness that has appeared to me is a certain similarity, that, as a soul resides within each of us, within Creation too, resides a significance that extends far beyond the observable, and exists to reveal a grander meaning.
Take for example, during the course of daily practice, material objects start to reveal their hidden meanings and become, to the artist and poet, a source or a means to the transformation from a linear, natural state of mind to a divine state of mind. For instance, spirals, or better yet, let's take waves (it's common knowledge that our natural universe consists as a massive oscillation of electromagnetic waves), with our eyes we observe from the entire spectrum (Maxwell's rainbow) only a very narrow band, as light refracts and colors meet our visual cortex to create form and give us vision. Silent or, inert objects within our vision appear virtually static and solid, but they are not. They are waves of color. And photon particles.
Changing waves and memory simulate the illusion of motion to create objects that translate pleasingly into the artists' syntax. With dance, for instance, change becomes—expressions of life. Or catch a mime sometime and be held captive in an experience of timelessness. Some might say watching dance can be hypnotic, as we seem spellbound by the moment and by the motion of dance while interpreting movements; but I think seeing then is seeing more clearly and beyond the cloudy filters of our intellect, and, watching externally rather than 'understanding' internally, we give in to a better way of seeing, through art.
So, by dance, by art, we experience a timeless state and are transformed, if just momentarily, to a new state of awareness, which is an eternal moment always beginning, irrespective of the previous one and having no end, and is thereby—endlessly new. (Contrary to natural laws of entropy.)
If it seems I've suggested life is comprised of something like string theory appearing as a wave of uncertain change, then yes, I am saying something like that. And as bewildering as this might seem, and frightening, nature is all the while bound by steadfast laws and principles of which we, for a large part, seem ignorant of or choose to ignore in favor of more apparent sciences.
Within this deep fountain we are infused, both as distinct and indistinct parts of Creation. Yet, our minds are inextricably joined to the universal order, and from these we derive reason and create thoughtforms. Yet we go about, oblivious to almost all but the obvious but illusory input from our sensory systems as we continue in our far-flung ideas of life on this BB-sized planet, as being solid, inert, with some things wandering or orbiting in motion, but mostly separated by space and linked to a chronology of events. All the while, we are unable even to detect without instruments and almost unbeknownst to us, radio (RF) waves and neutrinos that pass silently through our being.
What appears almost in sympathy but ultimately in love, we inherit from time to time moments of pure genius that reveal Creation's deeper laws, with visions of innocence, beauty and truth for our individual and collective (social) edification and perhaps even our species' survival. At the very least, the survival of civilization. Of these the most enduring insights are expressed in our art.
Much of our ancestral insight was handed down generation-to-generation in song and myth, pottery and cave drawings (ref: Hawai’i; petroglyphics, chant, hula) to be later codified and celebrated as cogent ritual and/or literature (art). What we all seem to be seeking, and have been since 'Eve', are enough tangible pieces of truth to solve a puzzle that has engaged mankind for eons: ‘what is the nature of Creation?’
And by genius, interlocking pieces of the puzzle appear daily and throughout history, as insights with the power to transform, emerging from within our most creative experience. The ensuing artworks are said to be its containers—and they are. However, it's neither man nor the artworks but that which shines through that is genius. The subsequent artwork is a mere record of the event. Or, expression.
As is, likewise, Creation a record of divine genius and nature, the divine made manifest (of which we are a part), is art on a grand scale. The ability to clearly perceive this is instrumental to the creation of great art.
Simply said then, making art is making the hidden to be seen, as insights into Creation are revealed to exceptional individuals—artists, poets, oracles and prophets—"seers" (ref: 1Samuel 9:9, kjv) and are made manifest for all to see.
“The only way into nature is to enact our best insight. Instantly we are higher poets, and can speak a deeper law.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
In the stillness of a moment emerges the cosmos in an eternal state of creation; in it, as in our spiralling galaxy, on our small planet, and in every culture, abounds art. And in art we find the liveliness, clarity and truth that speaks to us of the nature of Creation.
* * *
ARTSPEED Arts Collective
Copyright 2011 Michael Earl Anderson; All rights reserved.
