Confluence & God

Odilon Redon

Noticing uncanny coincidence, which I am seeing more as confluence. There has to be something as work - Nature, God, Consciousness, whatever you want to call it. Something more than what we know. Life is just too uncanny. 

Confluence #1:

1. A running theme in my artwork is an exploration of where the visceral, erotic and spiritual meet. Lately it seems that the spiritual side has a new kind of gravity that I'm ready to drop into artistically. I'm not sure what it will look like, but I'm once again returning to artists that drew me initially in that direction: Odilon Redon, Anselm Kiefer, Ana Mendieta, Joseph Beuys and more recently Michelangelo. There are many others, but these are the first that come to mind.

The surprise: There is an exhibition at the museum where I work that is exploring spirituality, and my assignment, as a docent there, is to explore the section Genesis and discuss how I would present it. Amongst the artists are: Kiki Smith, Ana Mendieta, Bruce Conner. Could not be more perfect for the direction I want to go in my own art.

 Confluence #2:

2. I've been wanting to explore new ways of making marks that resemble printmaking, but without the tedious process of making prints. I want to make art in a more direct, spontaneous manner, but mark the page - incise the paper - as if it was a plate. Scrape it, surface it, burnish it, sand it, ink it, as if it were metal. But also, draw on it.

The surprise: Who did I run into with these questions on my mind but a calligrapher, who is using unusual German inking tools. I don't even know what they are called. But I have them. I thought they were merely calipers. I did not know the full extent of their use. But I can dip them in ink. And so - I am coming up with whole new ways to make marks.