Art

[michael heany]

One of the key insights for me in reading this book was the link between artisitc expression and shamanism. I'm artistically inclined, more in the appreciation than in production, and I have never really come upon a good theory as to why we bother with art, in all of its forms. But thinking of it as a sort of unconscious grasping towards a state of connection with strange deities recognized by cultures from the beginning, but in our culture long since stamped out. Recently I've been doing my own drawings, inspired by the huge amount of etchings Picasso produced near the end (his paintings got worse and worse, but his drawing only got better). I've been interested to see my work evolve, and at this point I'm drawing little children who show open books to horses, trees, mother figures. I don't know what it means. I've always assumed it implied some connection to my subconscious. But after reading "Breaking Open", I admit it might be more fruiful to think of it as a conncetion to something (or someTHINGS) much more universal. It's funny: recently, whenever someone looks over my shoulder to see what I'm doing, they say it looks like "visonary art", which makes me uncomfortable (we have a Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore). But my new way of looking at things would suggest that all art is visionary, an attempt to connect with the Others or Other.

[michael heany]

I've picked up Finnegans Wake again recently, going about random pages, looking for things. I finished "Breaking Open" on Sunday, and today I open to a page in FW and find the word "shaman".

[the truth of fiction]

If you don’t mind reading it, my theory toward art stems as follows:
There are two planes of existence to us humans really, one is what we see plainly with our naked eyes, and the other is that which can not be seen, is beyond words and is beyond imagery.
I believe art, music, poetry and good writing are a way for our soul to truly speak, it can not speak with the voice of logical textbook English or scientific diagram, these things are used solely to explain straight forward that which can bee seen with the eyes and the senses. I can tell you of a rose, that it is a rich red in color, that it has heart shaped petals. But I cant tell you of the beauty it holds, I cant tell you of the sent it gives with the same type of English or description; I must paint it, or speak of it in the poetry.
Humans, being the children of a great Creator have in their essence, which is the Creator, an insatiable urge to create, and that which they create truly from their soul, is to be looked upon with the mind of ones soul. In gazing upon a Salvador Dali painting one can not explain what is meant by him with words, but your soul and subconscious get it perfectly.
Art in all of its facets is the language of the soul, as opposed to the language of the life-long man. Your soul knows a great many more things than your physical self, thus art is a tool of divination and intuition as well as the voice of something that could, otherwise, have no voice.
Dreams could be taken as a 3dimentional canvas in which your soul uses what it has learned from a day or a week or a human life time, or its entire life time to create an expose so beautiful and esoteric that its messages are hidden but to the enlightened mind, a sort of release of pent of creative knowledge at a time when the body sleeps and gives full control to that infinite everything within us.

[fungus44]

more in the appreciation than in production, and I have never really come upon a good theory as to why we bother with art, in all of its forms. But thinking of it as a sort of unconscious grasping towards a state of connection with strange deities recognized by cultures from the beginning, but in our culture long since stamped out. It occurred to me on a walk once that God(s) were invented to justify aesthetic experience, both production and consumption.

Why bother with the useless?

I'm thinking of Marcel Duchamp's piece where the bicycle wheel is stuck to the seat of the stool. It's crazy beautiful. very conveniaent (anyone with the basic materials could reproduce it), and completely fucking useless, very purposefully so. Maybe porpoisefully so.