reverse threading

the path back is the path forward


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oh, the mayhem. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

oh, the mayhem.

the wind blows.

there are about 200 seeds in a single dandelion fluff. even in the gentlest of breezes, the dandelion field scatters everywhere – seeding, seeding – more dandelions, more dandelion fields.

oh, the mayhem.

88 keys.

the clusters of piano keys that might be in any piece of music. consider just a three-note composition. in the simplest of equations, assuming once the first choice is made you must move on to the second choice and then the third choice, one has 88 keys to choose from x 88 keys to choose from x 88 keys to choose from – merely 681,472 options for any given composer on any given day working to write just the first three notes of a melodic gesture.

oh, the mayhem.

choices.

for the painter and a canvas, a writer and a pad, a dancer and a wood floor, a potter and blocks of clay, a blogger and a computer keyboard.

it – the imperative to mayhem – calls us. to make something out of it all. to birth something out of the raw materials, to use our tools to create, to choose direction, to express artistic vision – what we see or hear or feel – a passion – that might – or might not – touch others.

there is no guarantee, no real proverbial “if you build it, they will come”. it doesn’t just happen that way. it is an imperative nonetheless.

the imperative to show up, to engage in the mayhem.

i’ve done much of my composing in-between other things, stealing time – minutes even – to write something – anything, something that might be universally understood, something that gives air to a thought, an emotion – something in my internal or external world. scraps of melodies, bass line roots, ideas only until i might make them airborne.

mayhem steals my imagination and lifts it past the stuff-of-the-day. it pokes and prods me, not allowing for passivity, foisting ideas and snippets of muse upon me.

it’s a bazillion seeds in a dandelion meadow, a bazillion pianos, a bazillion pencils and pads, a bazillion brushes and a bazillion paint pots.

a mayhem of bazillions.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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we don’t really pay attention. [d.r. thursday]

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and then, while no one really paid attention – distracted by other things….

this painting is called ICARUS and, not being too much of a study in mythology, david told me the story.  now, somewhere in the bank of knowledge that i have learned and somehow forgotten, it resonated.  no matter.  it is certainly relevant now.  the shout of “squirrel!!” and the shifting of gaze happens time and again.  our attention-deficited-culture becomes distracted by you-name-it and we miss things that are happening, that are more monumental than we realize.  icarus flew too close to the sun.  we try too hard.  we push.  we seek to achieve.  we don’t pay attention.  we miss.  we get burned and fall.  others fall around us.  we don’t really pay attention.

what is really happening in our world while we are paying attention to the latest headline?  what is really happening in our world while we get caught up in the latest rhetoric?  what is really happening in our world as our politicians play shell games with us while the stuff of real importance they skirt past us?

david knows that i don’t really like this painting.  it’s one of a very few that i would say that about.  (just as i am quite sure there are musical compositions of mine that are not his favorite.)  i feel a kind of mayhem, a kind of negativity from it.  it unnerves me.  but, alas, it is a contemporary statement.  we don’t really pay attention.

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

view ICARUS in the gallery

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ICARUS ©️ 2005 david robinson