I've been reading this book called, "A Painter's Life" by K.B. Dixon. The novel is a collection of biographical scraps of fictional painter, Christopher Freeze. There's no story, per se, but an odd mix of pieces of Freeze's life as seen through the title character's "unpublished journals", bits of exhibition reviews, and the narrative of the auther describing parts of Freeze's life.
I'm about 75% through the book and came across an interesting bit taken from the unpublished journals of Christopher Freeze where he's describing a local watering hole:
"A dingy, low-lit place filled with the unwashed, the uncommitted, and the unemployed, Arnold's is one of those existential hog-wallows that prides itself on a dubious set of bona fides. A sort of retro stage set, it paraphrases another place and time-a place and time we readily assume to be realer, more substantive than the one we now inhabit."
The latter part of that passage really caught my attention, about Arnold's being a place that recalled a time the we remember as being more authentic than the present. That's the rub about the present, we're always busy trying to figure out where we are because time just keeps marching on. The past provides us with a stage where we can stop time, relive or reconstruct moments in time and imbue them with whatever significance we want, all in the service of gettring away from the present. The present, where nothing is certain, aside from the standys-death and taxes. There isn't even a *now* since time is in perpetual movement and we can't even begin to decipher the meaning of the present until some time has past.
It's no wonder that human beings cling to memories, real or imagined, of times and events gone by. The present is filled with so much anxiety and uncertainty because we can barely wrap our minds around how fast the present becomes the past. Things are happening that may take years to understand. We have little understanding of whatever is going on in our lives or around the world. Situations change in the blink of an eye and we have to retune our minds to accomodate the new reality. It's no wonder we like to retreat to "a simpler, more innocdent time"-whatever that might be for us. Trying to imagine how rapidly tthe present is changing is like tyring to understand the vast distances that light travels from places in outer space to Earth. Mind-blwoing, really. The idea of the ungraspable aspect of the present is what inspired one of my exhibitions, which I titled, "When Is Now". There is no now. We say that there is because it's in our nature to categorize things and time is one of those mysterious things that we have a very tenuous grasp on.
I'm about 75% through the book and came across an interesting bit taken from the unpublished journals of Christopher Freeze where he's describing a local watering hole:
"A dingy, low-lit place filled with the unwashed, the uncommitted, and the unemployed, Arnold's is one of those existential hog-wallows that prides itself on a dubious set of bona fides. A sort of retro stage set, it paraphrases another place and time-a place and time we readily assume to be realer, more substantive than the one we now inhabit."
The latter part of that passage really caught my attention, about Arnold's being a place that recalled a time the we remember as being more authentic than the present. That's the rub about the present, we're always busy trying to figure out where we are because time just keeps marching on. The past provides us with a stage where we can stop time, relive or reconstruct moments in time and imbue them with whatever significance we want, all in the service of gettring away from the present. The present, where nothing is certain, aside from the standys-death and taxes. There isn't even a *now* since time is in perpetual movement and we can't even begin to decipher the meaning of the present until some time has past.
It's no wonder that human beings cling to memories, real or imagined, of times and events gone by. The present is filled with so much anxiety and uncertainty because we can barely wrap our minds around how fast the present becomes the past. Things are happening that may take years to understand. We have little understanding of whatever is going on in our lives or around the world. Situations change in the blink of an eye and we have to retune our minds to accomodate the new reality. It's no wonder we like to retreat to "a simpler, more innocdent time"-whatever that might be for us. Trying to imagine how rapidly tthe present is changing is like tyring to understand the vast distances that light travels from places in outer space to Earth. Mind-blwoing, really. The idea of the ungraspable aspect of the present is what inspired one of my exhibitions, which I titled, "When Is Now". There is no now. We say that there is because it's in our nature to categorize things and time is one of those mysterious things that we have a very tenuous grasp on.
3 comments:
hi tim! liked your post.
i've been reading Deleuze (french philosopher) on this very topic. he says this about reminiscence (in reference to Proust) in a way which speaks to what you liked about the passage you posted from the book you're reading:
"Reminiscence designates a passive synthesis, an involuntary memory...Combray reappears, not as it was or as it could be, but in a splendour which was never lived...the present that it was, but also the present which it could be...it is within Forgetting, as though immemorial, that Combray reappears..."
what's interesting furthermore is that Deleuze himself seems to after a different theory of time, one that is not based on a past which perhaps never was present, nor would time be based on a model of the past in which the present and future will only ever be dimensions of the past--where 'time' is. he says:
"it is not that the present is a dimension of time: the present alone exists. rather, synthesis constitutes time as a living present, and the past and the future as dimensions of this present...[which is not a perpetual present but still a present which passes]."
jessie
Great post Tim!
The memories we create are mere records of the present we once lived and nostalgia is simply the recollection of how we felt during that present.
We create along this paradigm of permanence. We create visual records of our thought processes and ideas. We do this with one thought immersed in the recorded past, another thought in what we are painting now and then another thought placed on the eventual surrender to finality in the future. I think this whole idea you've written about really fits into what we call the 'artist struggle'.
As a former, "zenhead", and
serious Dharma practitioner
I am sick of the ,"now".
As an addict who is currently
clean I still want excitement
and so the present moment is
difficult.
I like your previous post on
your experience as an artist.
I don't bother copyrighting
my own work other than letting
people know I made it. The
ideas just don't come from
me in terms of me being the
sole originator.....mysterious
forces give me ideas and so
I can't claim to be sole
author even though I am the
only human person who is
involved with the process.
Even though I have a degree
from Uarts in painting I don't
bother with professional
standards because I gave up
on the idea of the ,"artist",
a long time ago. My mental
health makes it hard for me
to work consistently let alone
do all the ,"business" stuff
and networking that other
creative folks do.
You make some good points though
for the young bucks who are
thinking they are going to be
rich and famous. I wish art
schools would be more ruthless
in denying applicants because
they are just fooling alot of
kids by letting them study.
I had average talent in 1989
and really was not serious about
anything but getting high and
sex. I had no business wasting
my father's money at Uarts. I
graduated because all I had to
do was show up and fake it.
People let me know I did not
belong there but I did not
listen because I wanted art
to give me power through the
inflation of the ego.
Ironically I was a better actor
than painter...haha.
Thanks for indulging my rant
in your comment field.
Pete.
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