THE WATER SOUND

On Friday, September 4, 2015, Martin Law <martin.rainbowmaker@gmail.com> wrote:

Prime time to coat a small canvas taut like a drum to the touch. Lavishing layer upon layer, white on white with a fine flat brush. Patterning ghost-white dabs in the substance, organically organized in light relief. Hand-held by fire heat to steam, stretch and dry to a texture firm as crunched white snow.

Having scrutinized and scanned the surface as to its tactile touch, and on an impulse with a perfectly pared pencil proceed to apportion positions perceived in perspective. Lightly the lines implicit in the process elucidating in shorthand language, shading in where shadows go.

By contrast with the oriental adept an occidental western way of avoiding accident, by only then making meaningful marks with a brush. Not necessary but for the interesting interplay of pencil and paint. Improvising a duet of differing instruments augmenting an implied melodic line.

Sometimes with sepia but this time with black, which flashes me back to a past part of the path. Something to revive and revitalize, being in early experience a formative link between Blake, Palmer’s sepia earthly visions, Chinese landscapes, and the darkly delineated richness of stained glass, and resurfacing in bold contours through Van Gogh, all of which and more i assimilated simultaneously.

There’s a hybrid mix of marks in there, between the formalizing east and formless west but they blend their diverse languages in the same psychic soup , and to say so is itself just a form of shorthand.

Spontaneously discovering in my teens the interplay between black line and colour, where each alternately encroaches on the other until integrated, and i called it ‘overpainting.’

This painted piece, ‘The Water Sound’ was completed in two distinct sessions. The first being, the random black shorthand, the second, the overlay of individuated colour.

By progressively alternating between the two they become integrated and densities of random richness of texture can accumulate, refined down to microcosmic precision.

So it’s not just a ‘picture portraying something’, it’s a visual equation resolved and equalized. Integration exists on the level of exactness of subtle feeling, when random marks align organically, becoming evocative.

If it needed a name, which it doesn’t, how about, ‘earth-based organically hallucinatory impressionism’? That’s a truthful description, simply for whoever may argue that any ‘picture’ is just a picture, having never created one. What comes naturally doesn’t need a name.

The morning after completion i returned to add just three tiny dabs of colour, subtly eliminating a remaining ambiguity. Only then was the experiment complete, like a soft tapestry.

This brief exercise in descriptive language may at first sound abstract or obscure. Only because words barely approximate the subtle actuality of perception. Being just a pattern of pointers or a road map for imagination.

Art is a kind of alchemical experiment involving feeling, intuition, imagination. Best not approached with a rational conclusion. A ration is a limitation and a conclusion is the end of further enquiry. Imagination is the road to endless creation, and this is a signpost. Imagine that. ~

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Martin Rainbowmaker.

IN THE HUMAN ZOO

On Tuesday, August 25, 2015, Martin Law <martin.rainbowmaker@gmail.com> wrote:

Waking from an early morning dream with the recall that, we were quickly opening up the bolted tall iron double doors and going through, to the outside.

Flying out beyond infrastructure, in soft sunlight over breeze blown bushy neighbourhoods with a feel of California.

A dream version, unlike the place shown on newscasts, currently being deprived of water as if to herd human animals off that land and on to some sort of reservation.

But in this scenario we sail out over a rise, unencumbered by any sense of social self, and towards a scattering of people standing on the ground below, as we gravitate naturally to our affinity groups. When i seamlessly wake, to blue sky and nodding leaf silhouettes, visible through bedroom window curtain gap.

Sit calm and contemplative over morning coffee in uncanny quiet. It’s a welcome fine day just right for a walk in the woods. The only clue for a lead out of a lull between inspirations, something about water running over stones.

While jotting down salient dream notes before they fade, and with the inner soulful ‘not knowing’ that typically comes before creativity, the phrase ‘in the human zoo’ arises in my train of thought.

A potent phrase, and perhaps a catalyst. Along with the distinct feeling that we do in fact all live in a human zoo. Perhaps rarely seriously questioning how accurate or otherwise that metaphor may be.

The question arises and is worthy of serious consideration: In what ways exactly, if at all, does what we call society, differ from a kind of zoo? A free range zoo of course. To make any suspect notion of captivity less apparent.

We can choose to cruise between zoos, in metal vehicles designed to collectively finance and support perpetual wars between zoo keepers, waged for oil, by fracking, drilling, and mining.

The world-wide thunder of billions of infernal congestion engines made of nothing but planetary plunder. Made of mined metal, plastic, and rubber. Propelled by outmoded, explosive, prehistoric pollution. Which we pay for in more ways than money.

While being collectively proud of the illusion of personal freedom (of movement only), zooming from zoo to zoo. The convenience of service to self, snared in a vicious circle, serving the self-same system. If that’s not a captive market, then i’m a donkey.

In the big picture of overall planetary health and freedom, convenience could be the number one addiction. Not noticed when your eyes are on the road and everything else is called ‘scenery.’

The push on the pedals a vote with the feet for the zoo keepers. So familiar we call it normal. File under ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ and follow the dotted line.

Addictive convenience apart, and collectively, cars cause wars. Nothing personal. Just that zoo keepers are greedy and stuck in their ways, wanting to own the whole zoo. An intrusive inorganic affliction henceforth to be called, anti-mammalian megalomania.

It’s not the only way to go and doesn’t have to be. Since freedom of movement doesn’t require oil, unless you’re a rusty robot and not human.

So i greet the day, and hop on a bus. Gladly get off where infrastructure blends into an area of remnant ancient forest. Where water rushes down over rocks and boulders. Breathe the spray-filled air, fresh under beech trees along the banks.

 

Being the point and destination of this roundabout ramble outside the box. A much needed and purposeful pilgrimage to an inner source of inspiration. An afternoon of in depth artistic immersion in the nature of a specific place. In the spirit of quiet meditation.

Within the process of seeing, listening, taking thirty photos as an aid to creation. A further article may be needed to present another select few.

Wishing to share, hopefully, at least an essence which eludes language. With regard to our original consciousness, as one with the heart of the living planet, with appreciation of the subtle beauty of nature.

Often, when in a certain proximity to the sound of running water, i distinctly hear otherworldly music within it and internally. Many voices singing, chanting in unison continuously.

You may freely choose to dismiss as fanciful, imagined, or an aspect of white noise, but it remains, an undeniable faculty of consciousness, clearly astonishing and discernible. Ethereal, yet, as real as the leaves of the trees.

 

To my initial surprise, puzzlement, becoming enchantment, i’ve even been witness to it while on a plane at high altitude. Perhaps you have heard it too. It would be a form of self-denial to try to explain it away.

Yet it’s there to be found in the water sound, listening attentively within in right relationship, suspending sub-vocal thoughts. More profound than much of what we refer to as music, endlessly ongoing and as ambient as it gets, and always joyful.

We are reminded to revere water as a living liquid crystal which embodies memory, and being in earthly body we are largely water too, and that is our bond which is not a bondage.

There is a Celtic saying which i recall approximately. Along the lines of, ‘where the land and waters meet, is where magic happens.’ ~

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Martin Rainbowmaker.

THE FLEDGELING

On Saturday, August 15, 2015, Martin Law <martin.rainbowmaker@gmail.com> wrote:

Talk of small things is not the same as small talk. Large and small are absolutely relative. There are no separate things behind the names. Size is comparison, a conceptual sliver of infinity, as time is to eternity. ~

For more than a while now, out the back door of my place, where summer leaves abound, the same small bird appears, right before my face. A creature with no name, wild but seeming tame, and follows me around.

Day after day, as we tend to say, but really only now. Here where memory and anticipation meet as if to kiss, and time, like size, merely a means to measure what we miss.

 

Never a robin so bold did i ever meet, to hop within inches of my feet. Head cocked sideways with one eye alert, on an instant ready to advance or to retreat.

Repetition, variation, itself communication, decisive and distinct, all movement interlinked. Language of a bird, shared without a word, faster than you think.

What is shared is presence, allowing for its essence. Give and then retreat, means, trust you may repeat. In arm’s reach on the ground, no rust but greyish brown, flits without a sound, and what i haven’t said, accepting crumbs of bread.

Playful communication, decisive and distinct, each move is interlinked, perching on each spot, just right for camera shot. Having taken aim, in focus in the frame, when instantly it’s not, and everything’s a game.

Every aspect of perception, we’re trained to treat the same. Wherever something seems distinct, we assign a name. Having lost awareness of the magic of the word, and so assume a gap between environment and bird, which is obviously absurd.

Having made that primal split, we elaborate further and fractalize it. Starting by stating ‘the bird is small,’ when size is just relative one with it all. I don’t say this process is not right, but words make infinity finite.

What matters more is imagination, sparked by inter-species relation. There isn’t a word for this participation, even to call it a shared meditation. As no such concept arose in the mind, it’s best to leave it all undefined. ~

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Martin Rainbowmaker.