Not Preaching, but Experiencing

 

Every work of art is the child of its age and, in many cases, the mother of our emotions. It follows that each period of culture produces an art of its own which can never be repeated. Efforts to revive the art-principles of the past will at best produce an art that is still-born.

Wassily Kandinsky Excerpt From: Wassily Kandinsky, Michael T. H. Sadler. “Concerning the Spiritual in Art.” Apple Books
Wind & Particles, a drawing by Bill Hendricks 2020
Winds & Particles, a mixed media drawing, Hendricks©2022

Every work of art or artist needs a story, so Art Changes Lives (dot) Com is mine. This blog is about finding myself through art. While working on my master’s, I was interested in studying and understanding metaphysics (the nature of the mind) and how it works and understands reality. Now that I am retired, I continue my studies on the mystical aspects and piecing together my understanding of the universe. That means investigating the mind as to how it works, consciousness, unconscious, location, dimension, and our perception of time and matter. Now that I am retired, I have the time to continue my studies. The artwork that you see in this blog is only a product of my studies.

Right now, I am torn into so many directions where I might go in this next paragraph. I may have already spoken about why I draw on such a small piece of paper. The Single-word answer is humility. I don’t, at this point, have any big answers or statements. What I can understand and the process is only a fragment of the world. Why on found paper? Well, because it presents a challenge, the color, the value, the texture, the coating all a challenge. Would it allow me to perfect the craft better… Maybe, but every moment is a challenge of sorts. Lastly, to perhaps repeat myself, I love not knowing how long the paper will endure time. Kind of like me never knowing how old this body will last… Never know.<

Please, anything you read that sounds like I know, and I have the answers and can tell you how to live your life. In all likelihood, I am talking to myself. I am processing. BTW: I am using Pigma® Microns by Sakura.

Subject to Change : )

The function of art is to open for us the doors that lead to the other side of reality.

Octavio Paz, What is Art? – Octavio Paz and Art
Ink drawing by Bill Hendricks
Going with the Flow

This year I have learned much. I read several books about physics, cosmology, the mind, consciousness, and artists. I seem to be centering on the surrealist. Octavio Paz’s book, Alternating Current, moved me more in that direction. It seems he was a friend of Andre Breton.

Breton being best-known as the co-founder and chief apologist of surrealism. He wrote the Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as “pure psychic automatism.” Paz brought to the table helped me understand how the unconscious was tied to the automatic writing/drawing process. Not sure where I am going to go with this. Right now, I am reading, Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky. I am finding how closely some of the ideas spoken both by the Surrealists and presented in Kandinsky’s book are very close to ideas and beliefs of the Religious Society of Friends. 

As I was creating the work above, it occurred to me, one dot made by my pen can influence or change the composition. The substrate could easily stand-in for the universe…. the dots, the individuals that exist within, and how one dot and every dot… or every person contributes to the whole. By the decisions we make, each of us changes our surrounding environment or the universe in some small or big way.   

This is nothing profound… Just thoughts and where I am at in my journey.

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