Tripolar Gift. Acrylic / canvas, 40 inches diameter
This summer, my friend the Uruguayan artist Daniel Ybarra
has given me a huge gift by inviting me to work for a month and a half in his
Geneva studio. In a generous and bold gesture, Daniel sent me the plane tickets
and handed me over the keys of a large, well-conditioned studio in an
industrial area of the city. Working with Daniel in this improvised artistic
residence in Switzerland has not only rescued me from isolating myself in the
heat of Seville’s summer: his enthusiasm has given me an unforgettable
experience of dialogue and creativity.
So I have stepped into my friend’s studio, starting a new
expedition to the everyday. Traveling here gives me the perspective of a
geography of the world and the imagination, a journey from the city to the
forest, and from the desert once again to where ever: to the place where I get
lost when i’m a child, a timeless space, painting, doing crafts or just lying
on my back staring at the empty ceiling.
Among the abundance of painting materials in the workshop I
discovered some tondos: a set of round canvases stacked on one side, which
immediately excited me. To work in a circular format suggested me of an orbit,
of riding a wave, a spiral journey to cycle, continuously connecting the inside
with the outside, in and out of personal experience.
Fueled with acrylic colors like shamanic potions, I ventured
into the white circle, painting in search of an inner axis, a center of
gravity, a gyroscope to navigate the recurring oscillations to the extremes.
Painting every day has given me balance and taught me to value the creative
moment and the connection to the source. In a moment, I have recalled the
memorable words of Francis of Assisi: "Start by doing what is necessary,
then do what is possible and suddenly you begin to do the impossible."
The recommendation of the saint may as well illustrate the
Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann’s discovery of LSD. In his fascinating little book
Outer World, Inner World, the
scientist describes the separation of the individual and the cosmos as a kind
of dellusion of the senses. Hofmann tells us that as a child, in one of his
walks in the woods, for a few minutes experienced a state of mystical union
with nature, after which there remained a sense of belonging with the
environment like he had never felt before. The scientist never forgot that
first experience in the forests and chemistry gave him a way to return to it.
Painting with acrylic I usually work by layers. Sometimes
it's like peeling the layers of an onion to get inside myself. So I have found
the paradox that the personal search takes us beyond the personal. Within the last layer of onion there is the
universe. In the words of another Swiss visionary, Carl Gustav Jung: "Your
vision will become clearer only when you look into your heart ... Who looks
outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. "
The gaze that flows between the exterior and the interior
reminds me that the hermetic adage "as above, so below", could be
extended "as inside so outside." I imagine a continuum between the
seer and what is seen in a shared process of vision. To illustrate this we can
think of the rainbow: a physical phenomenon that is private, because we can’t
share a rainbow with others. Each observer sees a different rainbow, even if we
have the illusion of seeing the same rainbow. It doesn’t exists as an
independent phenomenon in the world or as a separate image of what is
perceived: consciousness is spread among sunlight, rain, the nervous system
... and generates a transient experience of the rainbow. Perhaps the metaphor often
used to describe thinking and consciousness as a river is directly inspired by
the flow that is the world and the interdependence of all phenomena: the unnamed
Tao is said in moving.
Flowing with painting means to let go and find things that
only come out when you are fully present, engaged in the activity. The Vietnamese
poet and peace activist Thich Naht Han, has written about the importance of
mindfulness and full presence in the everyday. In a letter he explains that
there are two ways to do the dishes: one is to do the dishes to wash the dishes,
and another is to do the dishes to do the
dishes. According to the Sutra of Mindfulness, while doing so one must be
fully alert to be scrubbing process. At first glance it may seem silly, why
worry about something so simple? But that is precisely the issue. The process
to be there doing the dishes is a wonderful reality, like painting without
thinking of the outcome.
The secret I have learned painting is that the process of making
our work is not something to be overcome, but that where true joy is waiting
for us to be discovered. Any artistic quest is infinite by its own nature. We
never get to be as good as we could be. The art form is always greater than our
ability or technical level. The recognition of this certainty can bring a sense
of fatigue as if we were running in a treadmill trying to reach a mythical
point of perfection that does not exist. But it can also serve as an awakening,
recognizing the perception that we never reach the end of our artistic
evolution. As we follow the individual path we build a relationship with the
spirit of our art that continually reveals new secrets as our ability to
understand it expands.
Federico Guzmán
Outer World, Inner World por Federico Guzmán se encuentra bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Atribución 3.0 Unported. Basada en una obra en outerworldinnerworld.blogspot.com.
