So, July was a busy month for me. I think I’m still tired from it, but that might be my lingering cold.
It was a month of much visiting, comics and art that was neatly bookended for me by Portland’s two major art outings, First Thursday and Last Thursday. And I have to tell ya, fantabulous gallery show receptions at Pushdot Studio aside, it’s Last Thursday for me.
This past one was the last social event Kip and I would have with Christopher and Bethanne in a while as they were about to move to Olympia—actually, they have moved at this point. We were joined by at various times Sara, Steve, Amy, Aaron, Charles, Bethanne’s friend Kat and her companion. As we were bopping around, I was reminded of how First Thursday was back when I was visiting Amy in ‘92, the visit that made me realize I wanted to live in Portland.
And part of that good feeling was First Thursday, back when the Pearl District was still a place where active industry took place, where warehouse and cold storage building had been converted to art spaces and trains still trundled down the streets delivered grain in the wee hours to the Weinhardt brewery. The only industry that still exists in the Pearl are the auto shops and the large commercial printers. And First Thursday was enthuiastic chaos–beyond the art there were live bands every other building, street performers, art cars and random vendors. Pretty much what Last Thurday is like except the Pearl was a warehouse district where as Alberta was always a shop front street. One of the most striking and long lasting images I have of that First Thursday were the twenty foot canvases of expressionistically painted skeletal body parts hanging in a huge brick ware house that I believe used to hold machine parts.
Now I don’t want to go on and on about how the Pearl is rapidly becoming crammed with condo buildings—excuse me, “lofts”–many with first names (the Henry, the Gregory, the Elizabeth, one exception I can think of is the Edge. [snicker]). A gallery or unique shop seems to disappear every month to be replaced by a day spa or boutique. And the galleries that remain are becoming dominantly, well, high class mall art joints and import stores. I am worried for Blue Sky, the Blackfish and the like.
Nope, I’d rather talk about the art. You see, my biggest complaint about the Pearl gallery offerings is the art. I can take the rude shi-shi types, cell-phone in one hand, margarita in the other as they coax their Landcruiser around a corner, but the art is becoming, well, so pedestrian. It is usually technically flawless, and that is all I can say of it. The general experience is thus “This is picture of a beautiful flower. The end.” Leaving me to think “nice enough” and I move on without breaking stride.
Now, at this past Last Thursday, our motley crew spotted some paintings that compelled us to cross the busy street and then over the empty lot full of trip hazards to the wall of the building that they were propped up against. And is was worth it, they were striking as well as fully engaging. We poor artists types even inquired after prices, which he gave us willing while talking of payment plans. And we are still thinking about it. In fact the first non comic original art Kip and I bought was at a Last Thursday at Alberta, in a space much less hospitable than an empty lot.
And we kept seeing things that made us stop and consider, in gallery and on the street. Maybe it was just the mood I was in, but even if I didn’t find the object d’art perfect, it still had something to offer.
This all fed something I’ve been turning over in my mind— my relation to art in all its forms, including my own art. Actually there are a few topics of discussion going on in this brain of mine, some I’ve been expounding on to othes, some I don’t think I ever will, at least not directly. After the stimulating month I’ve had, that really isn’t surprising, but what I do find unusual is how they all have been stewing for quite a while and how they might be all related. This can be both exasperating (moodiness, incoherent discussions with people as I work out my thoughts, lack of focus) and exciting (pulling together threads, a general opening of the brain that has allowed me to solve many nagging problems in writing and drawing).
But back to this one, art and how I relate to it. Actually let me open that further, all types of art and their stories and my relation to it. You see, I‘m a strong believer that the entirety of the human experience is defined by stories and how we access them. So you know that comics is going to enter this at some point.
One of the more interesting thoughts that popped out of nowhere was this concept from Art History of how when a building or some other large work was completed, the master builder would put a deliberate flaw in it. Now I had remembered he reason being that you needed that flaw in order to understand the perfection
of the rest. But I couldn’t recall the exact source. I farmed the question out to others, including Kip who came back with the other reason to this practice that I had thought of—you put the flaw in because of God. Either one had to humble one’s self before God, or God couldn’t stand perfection or none was perfect but God, so don’t even bother. Personally, I didn’t care for that concept, preferred my own mis-remebering if that was the case.
However, Patrick came back with the Japanese concept of Wabi-Sabi, one definition I found is “It is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.” from Wabi-Sabi For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren. That was much closer to the concept I was after, as is this quote from a website discussing Wabi-Sabi:
“A related term in literature and the arts is “clinamen”, the act of deliberately breaking a stylistic rule to enhance the beauty of an otherwise perfect whole.”
And I think why I am so doggedly pursuing this particular aspect is that I believe it is the flaw that lets me in. Hard to be part of something that is perfect or get anything from it without breaking it. And by flaw I don‘t mean a crack or marred surface. Actually I think the flaw I’m really looking for is an opinion.
The way an opinion can be called a flaw is that it’s never perfect or finalized and it leaves one open–either to attack or understanding. Opinion is neither wrong or right; by definition not Fact but something even more revealing. It’s open to exchange and discussion the way a fact is not. And that’s where the story comes in.
I have more to say on this, especially in term of comics, but I’m still trying to work this all out. So I’ll leave it here for now.
