The Wisdom Scrolls

The scroll is an ancient form and was a dominant vehicle for relaying written information until the book replaced it around the first century A.D. Well, I still think it is a delightful vehicle for conveying information, though as you all know, I do certainly enjoy the book, as the book page itself is the basis of much of my work. Having said that, my new scrolls are coalescing around a single series which will allow me to explore the creative possibilities. The series is called The Wisdom Scrolls and will combine text and visual information to highlight the timeless wisdom of the past with poetic quotations. 

I think of this series as a kind of outgrowth of the Notes From The Ancestors series, one of which is seen here.

Notes from the Ancestors no. 11

Over time, many cultures have come and gone and there are many, many cultures alive and well today. I can only speak to the perceptions I have of the culture in which I am immersed. I think we are so fixated on the latest trends, the here and now and our own image in the mirror that we seem to behave as if we came to be fully formed out of the ether. This is not so, for this culture, nor any other. We don't know it all and in fact, we seem to so casually turn our back on the wisdom of the ages that each generation has to learn everything all over again from scratch. Maybe that's the nature of things, but maybe it is why we behave as if we invented everything. The truth, as I see it, is that everything evolves and is an outgrowth of what came before. I don't advocate living in the past by any means, but I do believe there is much to be learned by turning our gaze to look in the mirror of the millennia of human history to see that we are not so much smarter and that there is wisdom to be found in our collective ancestors....from all cultures. 

I begin the series with Rumi, whose poetry astonishes and reminds me that I am part of the history of humanity -- our experiences are shared. From centuries ago, come these words (translated) from Rumi:

It may be that the satisfaction

I need depends on my going away,

so that when I've gone and come back,

I find it at home.

Rumi was a 13th century Persian poet, Islamic scholar, jurist and Sufi mystic. You can read more about him here. His work can be found in numerous translated volumes and I would venture to say you can open to any page and find some passage that speaks to your own experience. 

The scroll shown here is The Wisdom Scrolls: Rumi, It May Be. I listed it today in my shop and will get started on the next one tomorrow. The scroll contains the text running along the bottom and a long line of white cups against the teabag surface that is also accented with colorful dots and strings of tiny white pearls. Those cups and pearls appear over and over in my work, as they allude to domesticity, the quotidian and the preciousness of a single moment, slipping through our fingers.

The Wisdom Scrolls: Rumi, It May Be

The next scroll may include Rumi, but maybe another gem from the ages. I do love the teabag surface, but also want to expand on the materials I use, so am giving that some thought as well.

Hope you have a creative and inspirational week ahead! 

Moments of Transcendence

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.

From Essential Rumi

by Coleman Barks

I've been listening again to one of my favorite pieces of music, Monsters of Grace, by Philip Glass. Beautiful, ethereal and otherworldly, the text is based on the poems of Rumi. These fields of dots take me to such places and that's why I love making them....I am transported to that opening where the two worlds (any two worlds....infinite worlds) touch....where an unnamed presence is able to move unseen. I cannot find ways to speak of it, except by laying one dot, one small particle, next to another. 

I've been trying to think of the name of this series (more are in progress), but it occurred to me that these are also nocturnes like the ones I began last fall at the residency in Wyoming. For those of you that haven't seen any of these, here is one from the series and the rest can be seen on my website. For now, the series is called The Second Nocturnes.

Earlier in the week, as I was making dots, I began to realize that the world these dots evoke could be superimposed on something more concrete, an image more tangible. I immediately found some of the old photographs my mother took from her youth and made some photocopies to see what happened.

This field of dots is layered on a copy of a photograph of my own mother and father in their happy youth while my father was in the Navy during World War II. They are both gone now, my mother's an unhappy ending with alcohol, my father's a long life lived even with a weak heart. I know how those lives unfolded....in their innocence at the moment of this photograph, how could they know where their life would take them. Maybe that's the reason I find it so compelling and I'm curious for your reaction. Does this layer of dots perhaps evoke something unnameable and does it hold possibilities for creating a new layer of meaning, for moving an ordinary snapshot closer to the threshold where the things move easily back and forth. Perhaps for you it is just an old photograph with a pattern of dots. And that brings me to another big question....what is it that makes something transcendent? And what does it mean to be transcendent? That's what I'm after in the work. I am so happy when there are even momentary glimpses.

If we can make our daily lives more transcendent....wouldn't we be floating through life? I don't feel as if I'm floating, but as long as I have glimpses through art, music and literature, my life feels connected to something much larger and I am lifted ever so slightly from my plodding. I'll leave you with the latest dailies from MissouriBendMusings. Have a great weekend!

May 29, 2012

May 30, 2012

May 31, 2012

June 1, 2012