The Art of Seeing

It's time to leave the studio.

When I first arrived, I have given an empty space for contemplation, and it was an aesthetic gesture. Now it has been occupied by another. I've taken in a young girl who found herself pregnant, kicked out off campus and with no place to stay. Now that space is considered "her part of the room," a cluttered mess with mis-matched colors littered here and there in forms of candy wrapper, towel, coins, single sneaker. I've wondered what to do with it. Perhaps much like the refined Parisian art critics shocked at Monet, I've felt violated, thinking is this worth anything?

It's hard not to pass judgment when viewing something so utterly different from one's own paradigm. I think that life itself produces art, as we leave traces of our life, those are personal signatures bearing witness to the inner life. For me, space and cleanliness comprise a special significance; for my roommate, it could not be further from the truth. Mine is the lean life: hand-washed, hand-cut, and hand-cooked vegetables. She consumes pizza on the weekly basis with frozen chicken pot-pie and red powder flavored water. Thus the two's aesthetic clash, and is one truly better than the other? I honestly do not agree with her lifestyle, with the way she is "painting" the canvas of her living space, and yet I'm growing to understand that she is allowed the choice. 

When I visited the Frank Lloyd Wright architectures at Florida Southern, I thought that at some point, some people must have been scandalized. Who has ever seen a chapel with red iron-work like a massive "bicycle in the sky"? Yet I walked along the Esplanade connecting the buildings carefully, appreciating the design, the choices that were manifested on stones, shadows. For Wright, such a space was what he would have hoped for, and the inner vision he held even before the campus had been built--cannot be taken away from him. 

Likewise, when I spoke of Calculus, of Geometry, especially vectors, perhaps I had not been explicit enough in pointing out God himself to be the mathematical architect of our universe. He, too, envisioned a space that would be filled with lines, arches, and still space sandwiched in between. I'm learning to respect that. At nights, when I leave the library to go home, I'd routinely pause at the lake and see the natural blackness cut with swaths of artificial light. It is both the artwork of God and man. Thus I have filled notebooks with haiku in English, recording the water images that I had not been trained to capture with paintbrush but with pen. Haiku is long-standing Japanese tradition whose masters include many painters; English is the language of Emily Bronte whose eyes dwelt upon bleak moors. I understand that I will, for a long time, be developing an aesthetic in hopes of marrying East and West. Art in my life now is merely having conversation with all that has been past, the places and people I encounter now, and whatever dreams may bring of the yet unseen. 

Art and Madness

Genetics?


On the Yale panel, psychology professor Carson postulates a strong biological correlation between art and mental disorder.  She defines latent inhibition as "a cognitive mechanism that allows people to filter out irrelevant stimulants" implying that ones operating on less latent inhibition allows for higher levels of psychotic inclinations.  Creative people, then, who  do take advantage of reduced LI 

"access a large amount of sensory and internally-generated stimuli, but their high IQ would allow the person to process this additional information without being overwhelmed [...or] their relatively high intelligence keeps them from exhibiting psychopathologic behavior."

I want to unpack the statement above a bit in two parts, via experience and autobiographical accounts of recognized artists. Regarding creativity's high tendency toward reduced latent inhibition, there's not much debate. Poets, prophets, painters are visionaries--they look, with eyes wide open and sensitivity ultra-sharp in surveying the surrounding world. As a writer, I personally experience sensory overload on a nearly moment-to-moment basis: the lake, fuchsia  blooms, arched eyebrow, rice cake, curvature of font... Artists, in the very act of seeing, penetrate physical reality deep into its metaphysical undergirding. And such a lifestyle is certainly aware of unconsciousness and consciousness's integral relation. 


As to the effect of this practice, I must admit to a degree of insanity. It is easy to be overwhelmed and even the highest intelligence cannot act as completely perfect defense against losing itself. Whitman himself advised an occasional "barbaric yalp" and Aristotle's "catharsis" hardly meant shedding a few sympathetic teardrops. Sometimes seemingly psychopathological behavior is in actuality freeing. The tension many artists experience (Van Gogh, Caravaggio, El Greco, Munch to name a few) betrays an inability to reconcile with internalized suffering that, whether individual or vicarious, demands compassion. 


As for being a female writer (inheriting the legacy of Plath and Woolf), women tend to be emotional creatures in general and more in touch with the nature of aesthetics. Neither is it difficult to imagine the duality of pressure upon creative workers to maintain originality that caters to the consumers of that very originality. Writers, artists demand "true voice" yet even that world involves rules in which what is genuinely polished may at times fail to conform to expectations. Such tragedy, or rather irrational fear of tragedy, beset the artist for when inspiration has drained itself, the first to detect such emptiness can be no other than the artist himself. Dr. Cotton has always told me, in midst of battling melancholy and insomnia, that "you must not let the dark overwhelm you completely; learn to bridle the darkness, to surf it." The strength to accomplish such an ordeal perhaps lies not in intellectual energies alone. Where there is madness, the ground is most fertile for grace's infusion.

Makoto Fujimura

 Makoto Fujimura-san is one of my all-time favorite contemporary artists for reasons of him being Japanese and Christian. It's rare to find them these days, the Asian-Christian-Artist combo, almost impossible. I found so much resonance in his work, writing, and character--its genuineness and vulnerability. What touches me deeply is Fujimura-san's unwavering compassion that embraces suffering people. His concept of "Ground Zero" artist is astounding, acknowledging that we all live on a "Ground Zero"plane of brokenness, pain, and grief. Art, then, acts as a mediating channel for us to touch that which is Most True and Most Beautiful, or that which is Good and Divine. His grace, or abiding in Grace outside himself, humbles me and moves me to dig deep inside, excavate what is within and let the air flood in.

On Schaeffer's Reading

1. "True Christianity means the lordship of Christ over the total man."
The "total man," I believe, comprises of spirit, soul, and body, the three of which intertwine fluidly and cannot be simply compartmentalized rigidly outlines. Spirit, of course, we know, is ineffable, that which is unspeakable or even representational, so how then can that possibly relate to art, which tends to be humanistic and employs actual medium? We can easily make the connection between soul/body and art, because these are the core of what the artistic work is about; and yet these are precisely what serves as stumbling block to the overtly religious, who cannot reconcile spirit/body and therefore find it also difficult to marry spirit with art. The same overly religious may advocate that all things of the soul are mere psychological meanderings that hold no eternal value, or that the body and its hedonistic craving for pleasures is also nothing more than a stumbling block to true transcendence; thus art, which in the recent years has become more and more secularized, tends to be reprimanded as worthlessly pagan. This, however, is not what the scripture teaches when the prime case of the Lord Jesus becoming wine and bread, concrete artistic symbols, serves as cornerstone of the Christian faith. When we partake of communion, commemorating the very lordship of Christ over us, we mean that his blood and body becomes ours, his desires becomes ours, his very essence becomes integrated with all of humanity. To worship the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength means literally with all of your affections, your intelligence, your artistic eyes, hands, ears, your every physical and mental faculty. That is, to create art, worthy of He who created you.

2. "Man by the Fall fell at the same time from his state of innocence and from his dominion over nature. Both of these losses, however, can even in this life be in some part repaired; the former by religion and faith, and latter by the arts and sciences." --Francis Bacon
Agree. The pursuit of a degree in liberal arts has always been one of the driving forces of my life. Like Newton, I want to marvel at the gravity of this world under the sway and motions of a law testifying the hand of God. Like Hayden, I want to catch the majesty and order that can be produced from one musical note after another. I believe that an unashamed love for this natural world reflects also an undying love for its creator, sustainer, and caretaker; not only so, but a restoration of the lost mandate to govern over the land through earnest studying, knowing, and integrating of its mysteries.

3. "And upon the skirts of it thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the skirts thereof." (Exodus 28:33)
These shades of pomegranate move me. And if I may be allowed to speculate, moved God as well. The "unnaturalness" of blue in a pomegranate, the "uncommonness" of purple, and even the "uncanniness" of scarlet must mean that God himself revels in the imagination, in inventiveness, and the celebration of that which is beyond what the eye merely sees. Perhaps as an artist, one ought to see through a different Eye, a divine one, of compassion and grandeur.

4. Regarding the Temple of Solomon having cherubim, palm trees, and flowers in the same bas relief:
I remember reading this passage for the first time in late middle or early high school and being utterly struck by the image of such lush texture and color in the Temple of God. In the eye of my mind, it seemed like paradise. Free, festive, and fragrant. There is also warmth in the air. I wanted to be one of those priests, though I am neither male or Jew, to enter and serve in such a holy place. Our God is not a small one, but GOD, mastermind behind heaven and earth, the one who holds the universe and its stars in the palm of his hand. I believe that he deserves a nice house.

5. Do I expect to see "art" in heaven?
I'm not sure what kind of art it will be, what kind of beings we will be, or even what heaven will be like, exactly.... Vaguely, I think that heaven cannot be contained in our limited imagination, its consistency, whether similar to the air, soil, and water we know in this world, or not. What I do know that, it will be even more "real," or as C.S. Lewis words it in The Great Divorce, "substantial." The art, then, representational or expressive, must also reflect the same upgrade in reality and substantivity. 

On Manuel Luz's "Redemption Through Art"

"We redeem the empty stage with dance and movement."



1/ What is your definition of art? Do you think it is congruent with the idea that God is the Creator, the Artist God?
The first question: that's deep. I believe that art is something intrinsic, something real, inside coming to surface and colliding in contact with the material world. Whether collaborative, as in medieval artists who built the soaring cathedrals--or individual, with expressionists voicing their visions onto canvases, art connects the human soul, the aesthetic eye, the motion of hands all together with concrete medium to deliver that which is true and in such a way that no other thing, logic or science or professionalism, can. And God is indeed the ultimate Artistic One, the most real, indeed The Reality who invades our reality with that which is most true.
                                                        
2/ Think about something you believe is beautiful. Do you believe that beauty is objective (not dependent on what we think or feel) or subjective (in the eye of the beholder)?
Beauty is almost entirely subjective, except we may forget such a thing as collective subjectivity, or in Jungian terms a collective consciousness which comes to consensus in judgment of that which is beautiful, or true, or good. For one, almost everyone admires skill and vision, or we can say, craft and genius. Style preference may vary, but these two remain cornerstones to art universally.

3/ Is beauty important to God? If so, why? Why is beauty important to us?
Often things that seem pointless to us, such as pain (which is also utterly brutal), usually offer no immediate gratification of pragmatic measures. Likewise, "art for art's sake" also seems absolutely ridiculous. Personally, I don't believe in such in a statement. I don't believe that art can escape from fundamentally human and therefore bias and therefore even so harsh as propaganda. I don't, however, believe that art or beauty must be "practical." I'm pretty sure that God didn't have to make the Grand Canyon or bestow lavishing colors on a single butterfly. I think it's out of delight; I think He just had fun. The sheer pleasure of aesthetics and potential inspiration derived is immeasurable. Without it, I don't think I can go on living, let alone the magnificently creative and genius God who must have had very fine taste.

4/ In your own words, express what you think Madeleine L’Engle means when she writes, “To paint a picture or write a story or to compose a song is an incarnational activity.”
Foremost, reaching into the creativity inherently within a human is akin to tapping into a kind of divinity. The imago dei allows us, in a God-like manner, to find fluidity and discover the rhythms of the this world in refreshing ways unimagined before. To write a story means living and walking and listening among the characters in their distinct world. It is to take part, to commune, with reality.

5/ Think about a story (book, movie, play, etc.)or work of art that moved you. Was it a story or work of redemption?
Many many things have moved me, the most recently being, ironically, a rather sentimental Japanese film of the first love experience. Because of falling in love, the heroine Shizuru, young and with child-like demeanor for her age, determines to mature, to become a woman worthy of Segawa's love. And along with her maturity, also the maturity of the terminal disease inside of her. I don't know if technically that can be called a redemption story. It is actually heavily influenced by Buddhism and the idea of reincarnation, that one connects with another due to special bonding from a previous life, a bonding which will continue as the person returns in the next life in a different form. This bond, or more specifically the love between Shizuru and Segawa, is what, for that moment and time, tied the two together irrevocably. I think it's more like a story of sacrifice and fidelity. Perhaps, what is redeemed is not the individuals but the time they were together....

The In-between

"The camera will never compete with the brush and palette until such time as photography can be taken to Heaven or Hell." --Edvard Munch

 Whether Heaven or Hell, Edvard does not explain, perhaps because he himself cannot pin-point with accuracy the delineation between the dichotomies. I'd rather prefer to think that this world, wherein lies the artist's soul, is a marriage of both. Inside a man, there exists the imago dei and original sin; we are such stuff as dreams are made--a mingle of divinity and depravity--a precarious balance. 

What Edvard may mean is that the brush and palette offers a power, a force with which one can create motion tactily, palpably, substantially. It is not a mere click of an indistinct button, but movement in actuality. Perhaps similar to the difference between typing and writing. The sensation of feeling the tip of a fountain pen glide across a sheet of paper and the ink, flowing, that glimmers slightly under bright sunlight--is priceless and irreplaceable. What is being captured is not so much the final product as a more elusive element of participation, or even incarnation. As Edvard as also said else where: "Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye.. it also includes the inner pictures of the soul."

For him, nature, reality, and humanity means so much more the superficial, or mundanely routine: "No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love."  He was a keen perceiver, in touch with harsher realities that eventually even lead to irrevocable psychological breakdown. As a tormented soul, Edvard confesses with these painful words:

 "My whole life has been spent walking by the side of a bottomless chasm, jumping from stone to stone. Somtimes I try to leave my narrow path and join the swirling mainstream of life, but I always find myself drawn inexorably back towards the chasm’s edge, and there I shall walk until the day I finally fall into the abyss. For as long as I can remember I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety which I have tried to express in my art. Without anxiety and illness I should have been like a ship without a rudder."

I think often times, artists who reside in this world of bleak reality cannot help but be overwhelmed by a wave of pessimism that may consume any ounce of resistance. For Edvard, this wave could even be channeled into a kind of artistic power, and energy, which I cannot but humbly admit with admiration that such a continuous struggle between the "mainstream" and the "edge" requires much courage.

One of my most beloved authors, who, after decades of being wheelchair-bound and a chemical experiment  recently passed away, commented once: "Being ill is my vocation, writing a hobby." Indeed spoken wrly, he has since moved out of the painfully trapped In-between, into perhaps a place where his artistic labor may be finally rewarded fully.

Envisioning Space

I have recently moved into a studio, with navy carpet, white ceiling, and bare walls. A simple divider separates the further part of the room--where cushions, blankets, a kitchen, and a grapefruit reveals a place to entertain the guest--from the empty space at the entrance. At the foot of the divider, lie my shoes (and guests' shoes), marking a line into civilized space, while before it, when one's first glimpse after opening the door is a view of near nothingness. When asked, what are you going to do with this? I'd shrug slightly, with nonchalance, head tilted a bit and eyes thinking of something that leads to a fleeting smirk at the mouth. I'd say, oh nothing. 

In reality, I intended it that way, that empty space of near nothingness. Perhaps one Saturday, I'll wake up and brush up a giant mural of cherry trees with blossoms  budding and trailing across the entire wall, blown by some invisible wind. Or perhaps I won't. For right now, the nothingness is an invitation for my imagination to envision what potential can lie there.

In Calculus III, the first chapters are on vectors, lines in space with certain magnitude and direction. I find that a profoundly artistic and philosophical paradigm. Ever since young, I've loved Geometry, the intricacies of infinite points, lines, curves swirling in imaginary space. I could envision infinity with the closing of two eyelids.

When Michaelangelo talked about seeing the sculpture inside a block of stone or marble, I felt as if I was eavesdropping on a conversation between a genius and his own imagination. Because of his obsession, his perfectionism, his near insane devotion to the artistic vocation, I fell madly in love with the David, the  Pieta, and the name carved upon them--I, who study haikus, woodblock prints of Hokusai and Hiroshige, and Ming ceramics. In East Asian art, absence, the ineffable, is always more valued; and even now, when appreciating western art, I feel sensory-overload almost always. But even with its elaborate iconoclasm and overwhelming sense of "presence," western art has become less unbearble, because of Michaelangelo.