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Whatever there is to come, must come from the belly of desire for it to be sustainable, no matter what we hope for or strive to become. Life derives from the fire inside, the combustion of self reflection that causes the rise of knowledge, the act of doing: the glow of light. Trust it. Let it burn away the old, and let the black ash write the new story.
We are constantly attempting to make amends, make new and better, resolving differences as we smooth our pain. We are a resilient people, all. We come from the same source, and sometimes too soon, are jolted back to that source.
The machine of economy that has been erected, is systematically destroying all that supports it, the environment, cultures and creativity: dulling the light of hope. We have lost species of animals, insects, plants and languages, forsaken at the alter of commerce, erased from the documents of history. Within each individual are cells of innovation, foresight and vision, blood memory, resolve: the toggles and tools to build a new bridge.
We are more than the structure of our bones and the color of our skin, we are of the stars, the energy of a bigger plane, the assurance of what’s possible and too a reminder of what’s not, or not yet. We are builders and destroyers, lovers and haters, creators of beauty, makers of words. This is who we are as we spin forward, held by gravity, pulled by will.
Perfectly imperfect we move pendulum like, hopeless and hopeful, waterlogged and desert dry, destroying the old, to build the new.
To live with art is to live within a dialogue that challenges as it supports, a language older than our created words and deeper in its ability to penetrate our subconscious.
Art bounces off the walls of our inner being, caressing and lifting our fears and the desires we hold close. It is mirror and window, testimony and trial and guided passage: a free fall with no net and no end. The hand created speaks to us in nuance, sings to us as choir song and preaches with arrows and fire. It cradles when we cry, soothes the hurt, slows the heart.
Creativity is innately sealed within our making, born within our creation and shown in our doing. It is within the cells and between the bones: vacillating and enabling, pulling and pushing.
It is within the sight of beauty that we are pulled: deep, deeper, closer and under. Drawn in by the innate, the innocent and even carnal. Our emotions are played upon if not preyed, as if we no longer have self control, our autonomy and breath stollen by the sight before us. Beauty seems to have strength over brawn and intelligence, pulling our senses and captivating: caging the wild beast and silencing the inner scream. Often its said that beauty tames the beast, but truly the beast is always willing. Beauty has the power to which brawn concedes: liquifying to mush, involuntarily, volunteering.
Beauty has a way of softening the edges, disguising the lashing thorns, justifying the painful birth. The white dove is sacred as the black crow is feared, but both grace the wind, fly in wave like forms, nest their young. Beauty is as beauty shows, on its own accord.
The history of beauty has been documented in many forms and many mediums. Words attempt to describe what the eye sees, and touch knows. Beauty has been shown to have a sensual form and a threatening form, angled and con vexed, simplistic and shamefully ornate. It’s depicted as tall, short and squat, colorless and kaleidoscopic, wrecked and ruined, heavenly and inspired. It is said that it invites calamity as it draws peace, lightens the air, steals the energy from a room. If a man is too beautiful he may be seen as weak, a woman too beautiful is vexing, a threat.
Beauty can be as thin as skin, deep as bone and piercing to the morrow. It can be overrated in the realms of art, and lost as natural born species. It can be in the eye of the lover and crushed in the hand of the ego. It comes and goes like fashion, steadfast as stone to water.
Beauty is as beauty lends itself to be.
This time of physical distancing has me thinking about what I create and why, digging deeper to resolve my road blocks and find a clearer route forward. Though I am not certain if there is a better route, there are different choices that lead to different outcomes. I am interested in what the creative mind can do, how design and beauty opens up pathways of better thinking and living, as we navigate towards the future.
It is through the creative mind that we see beauty in all its manifestations and contradictions, its consumptive qualities that pierces the eye as it does the center of our being. The creative mind allows us to see who we are, it is both spot light as it is illumination. It shows the way, bathes us in the knowledge of our being human, beautiful in our imperfections, ugly in our need to be perfect. It is the creative mind that builds the path as it lights the path, exposes our pain, teaches our lessons.
It is painting that shows us who we are and architecture that allows us to feel our physical structure. Knowing ourselves through the built environment of created objects and created space. It is the culmination of all that we are funneled through creativity that speaks for and to us, through the universal language of beauty and the poetic word. The creative mind is instinctive tool of survival, carnal spark, gesture of love and hope.
Designer Yves Béhar
Artist Michael Stipe
