To be able to reach the magic you must be in a state of grace. You put yourself there by saying a mantra. That can be anything, as long as it insulates you from other thoughts. Financial thoughts, domestic thoughts- banish them. My mantra is usually a paradox, something that emerged from nowhere, but now is filling my brain, a single question. One year I spent months worrying about Atlantis. Or about the fall of Rome. Or the fall of Icarus, this year.
I am very loose, a window in my attic open, and a wind is blowing in. I start noticing things. Lines and shapes suddenly fall into place, and things start looking like other things, only you wouldn't know it. With my eye I lift and move shapes just like with a mouse. And now, faster and faster, things fall into place. An arch of pearls here, like a sword's slash.
Startling blue , indolent pearls a medieval girl at her window. A ring is not a ring is not a mere round object - it is me, the knight's glove, offered sacrifice. A ring is an Ice Castle, protector of the self.
This golden pearl needs these gray crystals needs this green gold needs this fan of quartz a green o green o green..- This pearl, the horn of a stag- like- I know- the Spirit of Dance. Of all the ballets I've ever imagined..I wind down. Five in the morning, and I'm cold. Time to call it a night. A special night, elated. The open window of the brain now nearly closed, ajar. I go to bed like returning from a party
In the morning, there are these works, a little shrunken, on my table. I have a mild amnesia. This morning I will go to work properly, finding calibrated rubies to fit this wax, adjusting a necklace, answering a question, hunting for a pearl, the right pearl, interviewing trays of pearls. But the trail is cold. This is the wrong brain for me.
Inspiration is not linear. That's all I was trying to say. But you can encourage it, by letting go. I can study a pearl for hours, trying this and that, and it isn't right. And then suddenly, when the time is right- there is the solution, and it was so simple.
That is the fast lane- everything blurs and connections open freely. a known high. Is there magic in the light of day and how do you access it?
Here's one way. Think of your all- time favorite work. The one you just knew was good before anyone else saw it. Examine it in your mind's eye . You don't want to re-make it, just recall the feeling.
Sometimes I do it differently. With reason, not emotions I assemble the colors and lines and shapes that make sense and do not seem to violate any laws. Carefully I weigh the pros and cons, until everything seems in balance. Then, and only then, I start removing some bricks from the edifice. Maybe we don't need this; everything is still standing.
Then - roll of drums- I suddenly reach out for the most key element, and set it upside down, looking for danger, knowing that to be any good, the work has to have danger, tension, surprise. I have no fear, it always works.
The art gods protect those who dare, those who care, and those who prepare...
WOW. Just. Wow.
Posted by: Laurie | July 09, 2007 at 05:49 AM