On Abstraction
"Wherever we go, we are friends" -Sloth and Manatee
Sloth and Manatee
Merriam-Webster says the word ‘abstract’ means, among other things, “expressing a quality apart from an object.” That sounds pretty good. Abstract art feels like a language of its own that goes beyond, and for me, goes straight into my mind.
Our world is full of abstract art, in the form of reflections, or light hitting things, or a texture on the ground, or a cluster of shrubs. We constantly read the world the way we read art, things catch our eye, we get a mood or we remember something. It’s happening all the time.
I go in and out of making abstract images. Sometimes I splat ink or paint or water around and see what I might find in there. Sometimes I have some cool paint from a wonderful friend and I want to see what kinds of things it does:
Sometimes, an image hovers somewhere between abstract and representational. Like, Van Gogh does this. Here’s his painting, “Olive Orchard”:
Sometimes people criticize ideas or statements as being “too abstract.” Which I think means, not practical, not rooted in enough “things.” This is supposed to dismiss them and relegate their thoughts to a bin of irrelevancy.
But abstraction and the willingness to reach beyond what is obvious, what is a “thing,” away from what is defined and toward what is felt or suspected or accidental, is a core dimension of our being. It transcends. It aspires to speak of the universe in its own language.
Our world is very, very thing-ified. This is because we’ve handed over too much of our lives to machines that run on ones and zeroes, which need a “thing” or a “state” to do anything. The ones and zeroes machines inherited all this from the industrial machines, which told us that machine-made was better. To make a machine do something, you have to thing-ify it. It needs instructions and commands and stuff has to break down into components. Zero, one. On, off. This, that.
Not so with abstraction. Abstraction is felt, and suspected, and inferred. It moves around while you are looking at it.
It is good to push some paint or a pencil around, with no goal or intention whatsoever. The experience can be like opening up a channel on the Enterprise to talk to an alien species, which might actually be you.
Brainwaves
Best of Brainwaves Volume One: The Fountain of Stuff
Best of Brainwaves Volume Two: Mom, Dad, I'm a Cat
License Cartoons from CartoonStock
Art!
Sometimes when I am being abstract a kitty wants to drift on through there
BunnyFrogCatSnake
Things Of The Week
I really like the way Esteban Cabeza de Baca makes art and gives form to time.
Sarah Sze is another artist whose work is multi-dimensional.
A landline information desk in Alabama that people still call.
Okay! That's enough nonsense for now.
May you find an abstract art object that speaks to you, may you make a mess with some pencil or paint or something, won't you be my neighbor? - Betsy
HELLO AND THANKS FOR READING!!
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