This is the third in a series of experiments with doing Word Art in abstract patterns with, well, rather abstract words to go with them.

Abstract #3

Waves of shining silver water caress a blue sand beach as you stand facing the horizon.

The sun is high and bright in a sky with the palest cast of pink.

You step into the water and feel your feet sink into the soft sand.

You kick clouds up as you progress.

The waves are light and offer no resistance so you continue forward until the waters close over your head.

As the waters embrace your body, you find that breathing is not necessary.

Sunlight shimmers overhead, fractured in a dancing web of light by the surface of the water above you.

Your feet find stone, ragged but level enough to tread upon.

A school of fish the color and translucency of amethyst rush past like a startled flock of pigeons.

The ragged stone progresses to tile and you find a road that leads deeper into the waters.

The road ends in a broad plaza surrounding a building of blue stone with a tall entryway flanked by columns.

You see no windows, but as you pass between the columns into the interior, you see that glassless skylights have been cut in the pointed roof.

It is a single room within.

Black and white mosaic tiles cover the floor.

At the far end of the room is an arched alcove enclosing a statue of a robed woman with blindfolded face and hands outstretched, hands that bear eyes upon the palms that face you.

“Speak!” a voice commands, and while the statue remains motionless, the voice clearly rings from it.

You say nothing, as words require breath, and you have taken none in these depths.

“Speak!” the voice cries out once more.

You remain where you stand in silence.

“Speak!” comes the third shout and this time you hold up your hands, palms faced forward in the manner of the statue and gently incline your head in a slow, deliberate nod.

“Well said!” the voice replies and you allow your hands to fall and turn to exit the way you came.

The road you arrived on no longer leads directly back towards the point of beginning, but now forks into two.

The mosaic floor now extends to where you stand and continues down each pathway.

The black and white tiles all pattern themselves to pure black down in one direction and pure white down the other.

The road of black tile is flanked by smooth white columns and the road of white tile has a pair of gleaming black columns in the same way.

You follow each path with your eye, trying to discern where they lead and while you can’t be absolutely sure, it seems to you that both roads curve in such a way that they eventually lead to the same spot.

Did I mention I’ve been reading a lot of Jung lately?  Can ya tell?

I neglected to take a photograph of the framed result because I promptly took it down to WonderRoot to donate to the art auction at their Bomb the Moon event.  I may have to go down just so I can get a picture of it.

Prints of this work are not available.

The original is not for sale.

I was told about the Doo-Nanny by Chris Hubbard, and figured at the very least I’d come back with some good stories to tell, so I went.  I did indeed come back with some good stories to tell, including the probably-more-epic-than-it-really-needs-to-be tale of how I managed to get a pair of Converse high-tops for two dollars, final bid, at the Possum Trot auction.

The Doo-Nanny, for those too lazy to click the link, is a festival of art, music, film and general craziness that is currently held on an 80-acre farm owned by one Butch Anthony, who is a folk artist, curator of the Alabama Museum of Wonder and perpetual wearer of overalls.  I described it to people as a sort of Southern-fried Burning Man.

I had a table set up there, and while I didn’t sell much, I got to meet all kinds of people who peered at my art and found it fascinating.  At one point, two ladies came up and asked me if I’d like to donate some art to burn in the Doo-Nanny.  The Doo-Nanny itself is a two-story bonfire that is ignited on Saturday night.  People drop things in there they are ready to let go of and they even auction off the opportunity to have a multi-course meal inside the Doo-Nanny a little while before it is burned.

I looked over my art table to see if there was something I was willing to abandon, but I decided instead to pull out a piece of paper I had handy and make something on the spot.

Fire

A flame fascinates as it burns to its conclusion.

We seek heat and light as we draw around it.

A flame terrifies as it burns without limits.

We beat it back if it goes beyond the boundaries we have set for it.

The fires of our hearts are always seeking a container to be kept in, whether as small a a candle flame or as massive as a bonfire.

And each fire contained so has the potential to ignite the heart of another into a fire of its own.

And so the flames are carried to hearts ignited, like the flames of candles at an Easter service, a lighting from one to the next to amplify a single candle’s flame to enough light to fill a cathedral.

Perhaps art movements should properly be called art conflagrations.

The blazing fires of genius are the kind to catch, to transform everything in its path into something quite different, quite different from what it was.

Here is a secret that we all know.

That creation and destruction are not absolutes.

They are value judgements applied to the process of change.

When a thing is changed into something we deem useful, we call it creation.

When the process of change results in something we have no use for, we call it destruction.

Each stroke of the pen obliterates the purity of the unblemished virginity of the blank sheet of paper.

The fires of the kiln strip all softness from the clay of a pot.

Every note of music, temporarily, it pushes aside the silence.

(And yet every moment of silence allows the music to be heard.)

Fire creates.  Fire destroys.  Fire transforms.

A new creation cannot exist without the destruction of that which came before it.

(Sometimes the one thing that holds us back from creating something new is the fear of what we may lose when we render it into being.)

One day all of this will be ashes.

Whether it’s when the trumpets blast from the heavens and God calls us all home or when the sun flares up in its final collapse, that which stands here will stand no more.

It is a rather terrifying thought for one to contemplate.

And yet it is a liberating one.

Against the length of eternity, we are as candle flames.

And yet how brightly we shine.

This moment flickers, gives off heat and light and then fades into darkness.

Keep it in your heart.

Tend to it.

And use it to light a new creation.

I typed all the words into a note on my iPhone so they wouldn’t be lost, and took a photograph to remember it by.  I didn’t have a frame handy, so I picked some thin twigs off the ground and improvised one.

Fire: Framed

I’d had it in my head that I would read the words on stage before dropping it in the Doo-Nanny, but the comedy of errors that went into getting the thing inside there was as much craziness as I could handle.  (Another long story.  Ask me and I’ll tell it to you sometime.)

Prints of this work are not available.

The original has been destroyed.