Be astonished
Not everything needs to be analyzed.
The way we talk about art is funny.
I don’t mean the actual way we talk about it, although I do find exhibition descriptions entertaining. I mean, the fact that we even talk about art at all is funny to me.
My Art History professor is rolling in her grave right now hearing me say this. I mean, she’s still alive but all we did in her classes was talk about art so I’m pretty sure me saying this has killed her and yeah - she’s dead now, in the grave now, rolling.
The same gets me about books, music, art. The same gets me about the word “critic” and the work critics do. (No offense guys, but get a life.) Why all the talk?
And I get it. Art isn’t separate from what people have to say about it. I would even argue that how people respond to art is just as important as the art itself, it’s part of what makes art real, meaningful, what brings it to life.
But it can’t just be the words we put around it. More than something you can describe, art is an experience.
Back to my Art History Professor. Poor Professor DeBoer. She would take us to the Getty. We’d stand there in front of paintings and she’d come alongside us, whispering sweet nothings in our ears. See how the artist uses chiaroscruo to create dimensionality and drama, she’d say. Look at the items in the foreground, what is the artist saying here? She was helping us learn how to look.
It was helpful. It got me comfortable in front of paintings. I could stand there, with my weight on one hip and my pointer finger on my lips and not only look like I knew what I was doing, but actually know what I was doing.
But here’s the thing - and maybe it’s one of those things were you have to know the rules before you break them, but these days, I don’t look for anything when I’m in front of a painting, I just feel. I feel it.
The point of art is to feel something - uncomfortable, sad, confused, sober, happy, humored, enlivened, astonished, joyful!
Reminds me of my experience at the Robert Rauschenberg retrospective at SFMOMA a few years back. I cried like a baby. I just wept. And I wasn’t even sure why. And you know what? It didn’t matter why. Something deep within me, something my mind could not put words to, connected to and understood the work and what was being said. It moved me.
And that was it. That was the experience.
No words needed to be said about that. No words needed to be created around that experience to legitmize it or explain it. We don’t always have to analyze things. We don’t analyze flowers or the night sky. We just breathe them in. We let their beauty wash over us. We delight in them, we’re astonished by them.
This is is not only enough, this is the whole point.
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Steal this recipe for persimmon pie:
Hop over a neighbor’s fence after midnight in November and steal five ripe persimmons.
Coax a friend into removing the persimmon flesh with his bare hands.
Place persimmons, along with honey, cinnamon, nutmeg and graham crackers in a blender with the top off.
Turn on blender.
Lick persimmon pie off the ceiling.
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Try this meditation for freedom:
Find a comfortable position either sitting or lying down.
Close your eyes and imagine yourself cocooned inside an egg, just big enough to fit your body, all snuggled up.
Pull your arms tight into your chest.
Do the same with your legs.
Release your limbs and break the egg!
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“Ultimately what we’re touching is the Invisible, all-pervasive Intelligence that surrounds us and penetrates us. It is grooming us to be able to tolerate its splendor. It can’t just reveal itself openly because we would be forfeited: we’d never know what hit us.” –Terence McKenna
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Jump and pray,
Joce
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