I read somewhere that on average a person generates 3 to 4 lbs of trash everyday.  My goodness…  I think part of the reason why I kept a storage space was so that I had a place to dump things.  This way, I’m not really throwing anything away.   It’s maddening. It feels good to face them, these voiceless things that have been sitting in a dark damp space for so long.  My old artwork for instance…  years and years of drawings, paintings, collection of paper for future collages, ideas collected and then buried…  I found one box titled “hk-old drawings-DO NOT OPEN!”  Geez.  I didn’t open it.  In the next couple of weeks, I have some decisions to make.  I keep thinking about Agnes Martin who apparently destroyed much of her older work (I think mostly works that were completed before her grid paintings.)  This is a deliberate task, to destroy your work. There is no easy delete button here.  I wonder what she did…  just simply throw it in the trash? burn it? slash it?  Paint over it?  Electric saw? 

I’ll stop here with a quote by Agnes Martin:

“Violence destructiveness and possessiveness are an integral part of response to the concrete.  This distresses some people very much and they would like to escape from response to the concrete in order to avoid them.  But there is no escape.” 

(-_-) hk

NEVERTHELESS

you’ve seen a strawberry
    that’s had a struggle; yet
    was, where the fragments met,

a hedgehog or a star-
    fish for the multitude
    of seeds.  What better food

than apple-seeds–the fruit
    within the fruit–locked in
    like counter-curved twin

hazel-nuts?  Frost that kills
    the little rubber-plant-
    leaves of kok-saghyz-stalks, can’t

harm the roots; they still grow
    in frozen ground.  Once where
    there was a prickly-pear-

leaf clinging to barbed wire,
    a root shot down to grow
    in earth two feet below;

as carrots form mandrakes
    or a ram’s-horn root some-
    times.  Victory won’t come

to me unless I go
    to it; a grape-tendril
    ties a knot in knots till

knotted thirty times,–so
    the bound twig that’s under-
    gone and over-gone, can’t stir.

The weak overcomes its
    menace, the strong over-
    comes itself.  What is there

like fortitude! What sap
    went through that little thread
    to make the cherry red! 

I’ve always had a book of Marianne Moore’s poems in my studio.  It’s been buried in a box since I moved and I found it again recently.  I’ve used this book as a brush before and the evidence of the horizon blue color I used is still there…  Unlike any other color, the sky blue, that delicate light, warm blue (I think Constable nailed it!) ages so beautifully.  The yellowing of paint over time doesn’t diminish the intensity of the color but rather adds warmth.  Well, I needed “nevertheless” today.

(-_-)hk

 After many years of pondering about whether I should have my own website featuring my artworks, it is finally up and running.  I made the decision to just publish it even though I didn’t have all the images.  No more self made road blocks.  Another reason why I postponed designing my website was I felt compelled to put together a statement about my work and the never good enough resumé.  I can spend hours and hours on them and cringe each time I read them.  I don’t even know how many I’ve composed in the last 10 years.  I always felt they were never honest enough…

Designing my own website was a rewarding process.  I got to organize and edit without needing a vacation from my emotional self.  I don’t know… Organizing is sexy.  And, Non-obsessive organizing is even sexier.  Well, enough for now…  Will be back soon to upload some new paintings I’m working on…

(-_-) hk