Take a photo of a barcode or cover
"It doesn't say much. Only 'Howard Roark, Architect.' But it's like those mottoes men carved over the entrance of a castle and died for. It's a challenge in the face of something so vast and so dark, that all the pain on earth—and do you know how much suffering there is on earth?—all the pain comes from that thing you are going to face. I don't know what it is, I don't know why it should be unleashed against you. I know only that it will be. And I know that if you carry these words through to the end, it will be a victory, Howard, not just for you, but for something that should win, that moves the world—and never wins acknowledgment. It will vindicate so many who have fallen before you, who have suffered as you will suffer. May God bless you—or whoever it is that is alone to see the best, the highest possible to human hearts. You're on your way into hell, Howard."
Bai Ganyo: Incredible Tales of a Modern Bulgarian
Victor A. Friedman, Catherine Rudin, Christina E. Kramer, Grace E. Fielder, Aleko Konstantinov
DID NOT FINISH
Everything, anything that is a thing, comes up from the deepest level. Modern physics calls that level the Unified Field. The more your consciousness—your awareness—is expanded, the deeper you go toward this source, and the bigger the fish you can catch.
Gardens of Awakening: A Guide to the Aesthetics, History, and Spirituality of Kyoto's Zen Landscapes
Shin'ichi Hisamatsu, in his book Zen to Bijutsu (Zen and Fine Arts, 1976), speaks of Zen aesthetics with seven characteristics: asymmetry (fukinsei 不 均 ⻫ ), simplicity (kanso 簡 素 ), loftiness (kokō 枯 高 ), naturalness (shizen 自然), subtle profundity (yūgen 幽玄), unworldliness (datsuzoku 脱俗), and serenity (seijaku 静寂). These are all accurate, and this is a very helpful pioneering analysis. Hisamatsu says, "The fine arts of Zen must embody these seven characteristics fully harmonized as one."
Despite my efforts to create a linear narrative for the purpose of clarity, the 'story of art' is not straightforward and narrow, and certainly not limited. And this is just a fraction of non-male artists who have contributed to this story. History is constantly being, and will continue to be, rewritten day by day.
To trust in art is to trust in mystery. The suggestion that no serious artist would attempt to communicate with, or about, the dead or other realms falls apart with the most perfunctory scrutiny. Across the globe, the spirit world has shaped culture for millennia. In the West, the Bible was the source of most pre-modern art – and it's full of magic, the supernatural and non-human agents. Where would the Renaissance be without its saints, angels and devils, its visions of humans manipulated by powers beyond their comprehension? Or Ancient Greece without its gods and goddesses, who shape-shifted at the drop of a hat? Or, for that matter, the many riches of First Nations art? But then art itself is a form of alchemy – the transformation of one thing (an idea, a material) into another. It is in its nature to be allusive rather than literal, to deal in association, symbol and encryption, to honour intuition and imagination over reason – all of this chimes with much magical practice. It's as unconcerned as a prophet with accuracy.
She paints a self-portrait because, as a subject, she is always available. (This is putting it mildly.) She's been barred from so many other places, so many other bodies. Sometimes, she's unclear about why and who she's painting her picture for. (Does anyone really know what a painting is for?) All she knows is that something compels her to look at herself for hours on end, for reasons that have nothing to do with vanity – quite the opposite. What draws her back to her reflection again and again is the raw self-scrutiny that stems from unknowing; from the confusion she's experienced between the reality of living in her body and the lies that she's been told about it that have been drummed into her since the moment she arrived on earth. She looks at herself in order to study what she's made of, to understand herself anew and, from time to time, to rage against the very thing that confines and defines her. She paints herself to develop her skills, to converse with her contemporaries and with art history. In the act of painting herself she makes clear that she is someone worth looking at, someone worth acknowledging. Her paintings assume shapes that she does not always predict. Against all odds, she discovers what she is capable of.