WRITINGS
NOTES ON MY CREATIVE PROCESS
Paintings as a meditation on light:
All color is a point on the spectrum of Light. I
n Painting, color is Light. Therefore, to use color well, is to control light, and thus to direct the eye of the viewer and thus effect an experience.
The nature of light = the light of Nature.
My practice is to condition my mind by immersion experiences in holy places.
The observation of changing light and blowing weather and natural form, the observation of stillness in a temple or cathedral or forest grove...
Attune to the interrelation of systems…natural systems build upon themselves, interconnect. Spiritual systems do as well. I believe Painting to be a spiritual path, and a aid to spiritual systems. It is the process of making visible the invisible, of revealing through light and color and form that which is until then only an internal mental or spiritual or rational or emotional process.
First stage process: listen. Observe changing light and how form is created by it.
Travel into secluded or meditative locations if possible to completely immerse oneself. a cathedral of trees, a high peak, a quiet roadside rest, a quiet shrine in old temple.
Next stage: distill forms from these experiences.
Develop vocabulary of forms/marks/shapes and applications through drawing.
Next stage: combine and recombine forms according to chance and aesthetic sense.
Next stage: experiment with intuition + chance + material nature
Next stage; experiment with human scale. size means little. what is the scale?
Next stage: experiment with materials, natural and synthetic. Grandfather's old brush just might work!
Next stage: derive interplay of structure and chaos through geometrical ordering
Next weave these forces together. Order and chaos, structure and gesture.
Combine in forms that evoke nature and seek to understand nature.
Now then, Throw all that away. Relax the mind.
Possess No-mind.
Feel only what wishes to come through you. Unhook the mind from its cart of thoughts and feel the universe moving through and within you.
There is a flow, veins of energies and material gestures that run throughout the earth and within the mind.
The forms repeat and are undeniable in their strength. They can run right up your spine and out your brush or pen.
For, the analytic process in studying nature thus conditions and invites the creative, synthetic process of improvisation and play in the mind. First we must know in order that we might love, and then out of love comes relatedness, and out of this comes co-creation.
A compass and ruler is all we need to draw geometrical beauty.
The mind can become progressively unfettered through deep study and observation of the inherent creative processes of the universe and organizing patterns observed throughout. One can only really find meaning or significance in a thing to the degree that one attunes and harmonizes one’s consciousness with it.
This in turn can lead to the recognition that true human nature and Nature itself are the same. A-HA! When this is recognized, then the mind can begin to identify with the transcendent rational creative spirit. There is no mistake. There is no accident. It is all working in process and flow, all rivers lead towards to sea.
Indeed we are all brothers and sisters. We are all One.