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The Quest
3/22/08

We find questions are the ties that bind us
While answers just defy us.
The “quest” is something we share,
While “meaning” is up in the air.

Hope and hopelessness act as daggers
That cut at our flesh like razors.
But love, oh love, is what keeps us smiling -
Keeps us dying again and again.

Lips touching is a great illusion,
But the breathless sigh of exhaustion is no delusion.

One step, two step, three step…
Through the hall and down the path.
I know you are there waiting,
I can smell your hair.

(”Snow-Painting” by Patrick Yurick, Febraury 2008)

I wrote in the margin of the book “No-More Secondhand Art” by Peter London this morning before I started my homework.

“In the pursuit of artistic abstraction we inevitably draw from the “truth” of life in order to create a representation of it; finding immediately that all we have ever perceived as the “truth” has merely been abstraction.” (Mister Y, Mar. 16, 08)

It was a thought I had wished I had communicated from the beginning in my abstraction unit with my Art II class, but I wouldn’t have been searching for it if I hadn’t been teaching it for the last month or so. London was talking about the purpose of art and specifically the quest for beauty vs. the quest for art.

If I lose you , be sure to skip to the last two paragraphs.

“Art has traditionally had another function besides the pursuit of beauty, one that is less costly; equally legitimate, ancient in origin, and universal in usage; and perhaps even more profound. I mean the pursuit of meaning. By shifting our concerns from trying to make the beautiful thing to seeking the honest and the meaningful thing, two critical objectives may be accomplished. First the paralyzing self-consciousness that invariably accompanies the search for beauty is diminished. When we give up concern for making something beautiful we also drop any comparison of our work with external standards of excellence, and drop the feelings of ineptitude that inevitably result from such comparison. The pursuit of the merely decorative edge of beauty is thereby put into its natural place: nice if its there, but structurally unessential.” (“No More Secondhand Art” By Peter London, 1989, p. 20)

That wasn’t what I wrote in the margin. But it was what connected a thought I was having last night together. As I was driving to go work out at the gym I listened to Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose” he was not talking about the production of art like London was but he was talking about how the things we perceive as solid forms are merely abstract. He talked about how recently it was discovered that what we perceive as solid, such as out bodies, is 99.9% formless. What that means is that when you take away all of the space that is between atoms and then between molecules all that would be left would be a 0.1% of what we see. And even the solid matter that we would like to believe is solid is unstable and constantly moving. HE described it in comparison to our bodies being a scaled down version of space and the cosmos. All of the space in between planets is equivalent, though scaled down, to the space between solids within our own bodies.

He then talked about how our perception interacted with this reality. He talked about how we abstract our reality. Everything we perceive as solid and full of form is merely how our minds interact with translating reality into the understandable. I thought about this as I walked up the stairs to my destination, the gym, and I realized that this perceived as solid thing I was walking on was merely a choice I was making in order to believe in something. I then thought about how stairs could be a metaphor, then I realized that it was more than a “could be” scenario – the stairs were a metaphor. A metaphor for getting to a goal, and how I walked illustrated how I did not want to work out – because I was taking my time. I was physically walking on a metaphor. In that moment I realized that the abstraction the students have been doing in class is completely real, as real as walking up the stairs.

We continuously live within an abstract painting, Or, rather, we continually live within an abstraction. The painting as an exercise is a perfect way of reminding ourselves that whenever we engage with life we are abstracting because we are perceiving life as solid, a fundamental error and a fundamental necessity. We have to see form in order to live within the confines of a formed world, yet the only way to find meaning within the formed world is the realization that it is truly formless.

Ok so basically, to sum up my thoughts:

Abstract painting helps us realize that the truth of reality is entirely as true as an abstract painting. When we draw a man on the stairs taking his time to walk up it, we are drawing ourselves. The next time you walk up stairs you may even remember that you are that man that you are painting. And when, especially in abstraction, we pay closer attention to colors and shapes and lines of the painting – drawing away from emphasis on eye-sight realism we may remember this while we walk up the stairs and these shapes and colors and lines that we traditionally gloss over may now be hard to miss.

All we can do when we start to see reality for it’s vibrant shapes, colors, and lines is smile and realize we have been goofing up. We actually believed that there was only one way to see the world and that either we had found it or we were missing out. (If you take either stance – you and anyone who believes this is making a fundamental error in perception and unfortunately is missing out on the living abstract painting.)

Until next class ☺ ~Mr. Y

“Undertakers are nice - they’re the LAST to let people down.”

Har har har

That’s right I started with a pun. This is my LAST day at Interlakes High School and I am already missing it. Janet and everyone else in my classes made this last day one I will never forget. Remember “people” (not ­- GUYS) that this ride has been awesome but it is not over yet. It may feel like it is but it isn’t. It is just beginning. You were my first classes and you will always hold a special place in my heart and in my education.

I have learned SO MUCH from all of you, and even though I could just go on learning and learning and learning it is important I move on, just as you will all have to oh-so-many times in the moments after now.

Moving on is important.

Remember: “Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone you love, is to let them go.” Thank you for letting me go and making me feel loved.

Some things I have learned directly from each class.

D+P - ­ I have learned that it is necessary to push. Even if your student gets frustrated with you. Even though I may have been verbally pushing you ­ you all pushed yourselves and you are well on your way, all of you, to being master’s.

Ceramics ­- You have all taught me that it is important to wait to be asked for insight. I needed you all to keep shoving me back when I pushed you to learn that I needed to wait until you were ready. I have learned that sometimes treating your students like adults is removing the authority from them. A very hard lesson to learn. You are brilliant people and I only learned a fraction of the wisdom you all had to impart onto me.

Art II ­ - Wow. That is all I really can say. You transformed from hesitant artists to confident masters of yourselves and the world. You became creators. “Many of his close friends later confessed to having heard him proclaim that he himself was God. “God is really another artist … like me,” he told them. “I am God. I am God, I am God.” Okay so Picasso was a little melodramatic, but even so you all became this passionate kind of Picasso artist during this last assignment. (And even before during the action painting.) You became Gods of your canvases and that was truly brilliant to witness. My smile from those memories may never fade.

Thank you all, ­ I have been blessed. ~Mr.Y

Some books I highly recommend: (my reviews)

• No More Secondhand Art - ­ By Peter London
  If you want to continue to expand your mind to looking at art in a new and different way read this book. London helps you understand what art is REALLY about. What is art? When is the right time to define art? Is art the sum of a process? OR - is the goal of art to reveal something deep and meaningful to the artist during the only time the artist can truly see - when creating?
  

• A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose -­ By Eckhart Tolle
  This book helped me understand myself in a way that lead to a self-consciousness that was free of negativity and abundantly gaining in constant love and care. This book can help anyone that is ready for it’s message.

  

• The Power of NOW ­ By Eckhart Tolle
  You have never experienced any moment in your life outside of NOW. The past and the future do not exist as realities but as abstract stories we tell ourselves in order to understand who we are. But if who we are is understood only through abstracts could that mean that we are living TOO much in abstraction and missing out on the greatest story we could ever be part of - the NOW and the power of awareness?
  
  
• The Power of Myth ­ Joseph Campbell
  Confused about the origin of man and his relationship with God? You may not find the answer here but you may find some of the first steps toward understanding.

  

• Strength to Love ­ - by Martin Luthor King Jr.
  MLK’s the man. Read “A Tough Mind and Tender Heart”. ‘Nuff Said…
  

Ok, So I am student teaching and having an amazing time. My Art II class is learning about abstraction in my very first, full fledged, actual lesson. I was so inspired by their work that I had to do the assignment myself and what resulted was this idea to paint an entire piece in the span of an album.

Now I would have preferred to do this at a live show, but I had to go with what I had and that was one of my favorite bands - Pale Blue Dot (www.palebluedot.org - guess who designed the website - hmm hmm hmmm?). So I taped the experience in the hopes of developing a kind of “audition tape” to send to some local musicians so that soon I could actually paint at some live shows. So I web cammed the experience on my handy dandy Macbook, put the thing in fast forward and uploaded it to youtube.com. Check it out:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc_G-3pQT8E

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYCQItml8us

So there has been some development. It seems that there is a possibility of me painting the 29th in lynn to the sounds of The Traveling Riverside Band - I will post more info when I have it. I am also in talks of possibly doing some album art with my high school friend Andy Telles’ band. I also am in early talks with another band about a May 4th gallery show. I’d link them, but it is still a little early - but they are amazing.

There are countless other leads thanks to my marketing guru Amanda. (You rock!) I will keep this updated with my art happenings. All I can really say is that:

DARE TO HAVE AN IDEA - Then make it happen somehow. People respond to passion, and that has got to be why this whole thing has been working out.

To any of my students who find this: THANK YOU for allowing me in your classroom and in your lives, it has been a truly amazing experience and I have been inspired in more ways than you could imagine. Keep an eye here and keep in contact with me.

So Werd out for now, as long as I am living I will be creating ~Mr.Y

Howdy Home Skillets~MrY