Artist's Interview: Part 6
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Q: The Merkaba mentioned above talks of vibrations. One of the newer physics theories (post-relativity) called the "superstring theory" also discusses vibrations. Are vibrations a significant part of your metaphysical model as well?
A: Vibrations are everywhere and appear to be a main vehicle for physical and etheric creation, although they may appear to us as only effects on energy fields. The term "vibration" is vaguely used in different contexts to mean waves, subtle energy, intuitive impressions and sympathetic resonance.I have heard it said that sound vibrations are the primary creative vehicle in cosmic creation, their resonances and interpenetrations being responsible for nature's basic forms and templates, including geometrical shapes, which, by the way, in this view, precede mathematics; mathematics being a distillation of geometry as geometry in turn is an abstraction of sound vibrational patterns. 7 This, of course, would presumably be a different kind of sound than the one we can hear only when it travels through a material medium...or, perhaps not...
The universe, All That Is, is said to be a vast energy field of spirit or energy which differentiates itself according to vibratory patterns, much as white light differentiates into colors according to the different rates, or frequencies of its electromagnetic vibration. In this view, our physical universe is simply a manifestation of spirit vibrating at a particular rate, a rate slower, and thus denser, than the rates at which, for instance, thought, consciousness and subtle energies vibrate, which is why matter is "grosser," or more dense than energy or spirit.
Perhaps at this point I may note, regarding allusions to my "metaphysical model" that although I used to feel a strong compulsion to formulate a coherent and more or less true world view or metaphysical model --true and coherent in terms of being either provable, testable or at least self-consistent-- I have come to feel less and less need to do so. Perhaps holding a metaphysical model, or world view is in some ways inevitable; but there are qualitative differences between feeling a primal drive to hold one --the best and ultimate one, as we have primal drives for food and sex-- and the relative, practical "need" to hold one, but just enough to "get around town with": holding a world view lightly, cheaply, promiscuously so to speak, as a merely practical and provisional point of view.
If life is a thought thinking itself into existence, then it is constantly changing as it extends its conception of self. Yesterday's creation stories, models and systems don't quite apply today, and won't again, anymore. If we concern ourselves with defining a world view we limit ourselves and our boundless freedom-- and for what? For the sake of indulging our limited, insecure ego's need for control and 3-D stability? So we can lead lives that "work"? So we can protect ourselves from what we don't know, or so we may feel we can predict future events? Or so we can have an ever greater sense of solidity, permanence and order in our puny lives, that adolescents may have justified cause for rebellion against, and contempt of us? Or, finally, as a sop to the mind to let it feel useful and needed, lest it fear losing its power to run us?It is good to seek answers, and good to find them; and we actually do find them. But let us realize that there are always greater truths. Let us hold our truths lightly, for we shall have others tomorrow; and let us not take them too much to heart, that we may have room for the others. Life is not as definite, or objective as we may have come to believe. We are unlimited divine creators. We are free to choose as we will, but let us not think that self-imposed limitations serve our highest expression.
Q: What have your "explorations of how the 'grammar' of rhythm and process work within the limitations of physical space to create form and structure" yielded?
A: They've yielded my paintings, for the most part. This "exploration" has been a long-held creation metaphor in my work, serving as a general method of creating, "like nature," imagery in my work.
Q: Do you feel as though you now have a better idea of how "meaning emerges in abstract art"?
A: Not surprisingly, it seems that meaning in abstract art takes many forms. The whole question of meaning seems rather problematic to me these days as I've come to realize the elusive, even illusory nature of it.
Q: Finally, if you could turn back the clock and had the chance to do it all over again, would you still pursue a monetary living as an artist, or would you choose another profession?
A: I would not choose another profession, for art brings with it enormous personal satisfaction, along with many challenges, especially, in my case, financial ones. I would choose, instead to be even more free, forsaking self imposed limitations of thought and habit. (Perhaps I may yet be able to keep my cake while eating it!)
Q: If you could offer one bit of advice to future artists trying to enter the New York art scene, what would it be?
A: Go for it!
Notes:
1. "Marks of Time," by Ellen Handy. Arts Magazine, Reviews. February, 1988. Group exhibition review discussing The Marriage of Heaven and Earth and its treatment of time.
2. "Film Strip Analogy," Bashar through Darryl Anka , Sedona Journal of EMERGENCE!, February, 1999. Love Light Communications, Inc., Sedona, AZ. ( E-mail: sedonajo@sedonajo.com )
3, 4, 5. Harwood, E.L., The Esoteric Self, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. 1987. © E.L. Harwood. ( E-mail: sharwood@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca )
6. N.B.: The Easter Cycle and Ode to Nature suites are exceptions. The entire Easter Cycle series was conceived all at once, as a set of formal variations. The Ode to Nature series resulted from a translation in scale and color, and was a cross-media interpretive translation of an existing suite of small doodle sketches in pencil. In addition to the paintings, there is a suite of pastel drawings and one of black and white drypoint-monotype prints of the Ode to Nature images. The issues of successfully interpreting the elusive, black and white doodle sketches and of adapting them to a much larger scale, using color and the formal language of painting, was an interesting problem for me at the time.
7. "Penguins: Humorous Mathematicians," Beings from Cold Places/Robert Shapiro, Sedona Journal of EMERGENCE!, November, 1998. Love Light Communications, Inc., Sedona, AZ. ( E-mail: sedonajo@sedonajo.com ) A most fascinating channeled article discussing "resonant dimensional mathematics," its relation to geometry and natural creation, and much more.
