An Infinite Context

There is no painting that does not have its gods and ghosts. Recall the stages and transformations of the work: images that vanish to the nether regions and those that spring transcendental. Images that shout but are devoid of the resonant stillness of a cathedral at dawn. Images that never disappear but remain haunting. Images of false presence and pseudo-inventiveness. Not the creative unfolding at length until is nothing left but forked passion on the anvil of premonition. The delivery that lies outside the grasp where, in psychological parlance, archetype is offered to psyche. Where the uncalculated like a splinter in the sea is introduced into cognizance. And you, dear artist, having enough of self-knowing endures this requalified releasement to learn what images are and may be asking of you. Where meaning can still be found and cut to the heart. With renewed intention and insight to provisionally approach the beautiful visitation that gives images life like something breathing.

A series of actions to make the hidden image accessible to the gristle of your understanding. To see that magic requires a willingness to bracket initial disbelief. With discipline and practice the instant you disappear to grasp what the deeper claim might be. A phenomenological event inclined to an infinite vivid otherness. It is not just looking through a hermeneutic lens. Uncaptioned you leap beyond yourself. An extravagance amenable only to the alchemy of its endless turnings like watching the sky unfold in your hand. The trajectory that leads through clarification to extension and amplification. Contents of the encounter coming forward on tiptoe or as an encircled spasm depending on the type and condition of arrival.

Imagination informs our consciousness in the way we choose and acquire knowledge. The Greeks and Romans of classical antiquity spoke of its power of divine manifestation. I will simply say it is a human-transmundane trope that seems to be simultaneously working through both image and imager-maker.

A precognizant region of the divine stream that unites together heart and mind. An event so powerful as to correspond to a higher realm of creation dramatically transforming the way you see and apply craft. What you experience inwardly appears too as outwardly. The manner in which you turn or position yourself determines the possibility of recognizing this higher reality.

As True Form it is a call from the infinite. By True Form I mean the creation of shapes and forms that have an inner core-quality, an inhabitancy in contrast to their outer visible and concrete characteristics. Not to be confused with “style” that refers to the way in which you create and convey shapes and forms depending upon choice of color, composition, economy of brushwork, detail, and direction. Choices made with the tools at hand and characteristically expressed.

Do not confuse True Form with “true to form” which is behaving or proceeding in the usual and expected way. Quite the opposite. There is nothing familiar or conventional about True Form. Nothing common, standardized or stock. It is not a calcified image. It is blood over bone. A conjuring rather than a contriving.

You are captive to your constructions. Opaque images are worshipped as idols. In place of transparent icons that teach, spiritualize, or render conscious idols are deified at the altars of literal single-mindedness. Nor is it the false gods of reason that makes existence shudder for reason differentiates, divides, categorizes. Imagination surrounds the flames of creation. It ignites the breath. You imagine; therefore, it appears. Rather than as dissociation or dysfunction, you are an augmenting factor in a cosmic curriculum, its center a mosaic of inspired flashes. Rather than a toxic closedness, you are the aperture that opens beyond itself to a living agency: the force of anonymity that is the salted nerve of a gifted shuddering. Moments of waking consciousness twice born like Dionysus. “We write” says Anais Nin, “to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection”.

Arthur Koestler coined the word “bisociation” to denote the phenomenon whereby two previously unrelated matrices of thought coalesce into a new matrix of meaning. A chance combining of unconscious roots that seek conscious recognition and remembrance. The film of the imagination clicking in the disclosing light like teeth clacking on bone. To be sure, not everything becomes known but the inner life forces become linked to the flow of universal energies.

In the darkness that nourishes the light investigate the image beyond ordinary seeing. Transcend the eyes. Go beyond the range of old visitations. Stretch yourself to infinite distances regardless of the endless curve of desire. The power of perception is prophetic for it is the power of revelation. It requires effort, patience, and self-acceptance that leads to an awareness of one’s inner necessities. You will create a higher body, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement. There is an infinite context to be perceived. A sublime fluxion that is one in essence but multiple in attributes and names that will shape your vision and the melody in your heart.

But it will be the good Lord’s own sweet breath that plays the flute behind the screen.