Loveseat
November 26th, 201511/26/2015 Thomas Merton: "These abstractions . . . are simple signs and ciphers of energy . . . Their 'meaning' is not to be sought on the level of convention or of concept . . . In a world cluttered and programmed with an infinity of practical signs and consequential digits referring to business, law, government and war, one who makes such nondescript marks as these is conscious of a special vocation to be inconsequent, to be outside the sequence and to remain firmly alien to the program . . . (They are summonses} to awareness, but not to 'awareness of' ."
For some time now, I have grown (bored? discontent?) with photography, especially photography that is (as some would call it) "pure photography," photography which just records (to the extent this is ever the case). Witness how I more and more use software to modify my images. And I have long resisted being part of "the sequence" and the "program," i.e., buying and selling and competing (and of course not being altogether successful, especially in the competing part). So now I am looking elsewhere than photography--for right now, I'm thinking about calligraphy--especially Zen calligraphy. I will continue to photograph, but for a while I will be more interested in trying my hand at making abstractions that are "simple signs" and "nondescript marks"--summoning (as my photographs have been meant to do too) awareness . . . Comments are closed.
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