[MD] Painting

[MarshaV]

Greetings Arlo,

I've read these passages from ZMM many times.  They are 
wonderful.  I've read Csikszentmihalyi's books, and would wish flow 
be experienced in each and every life.

Not quite sure about your last paragraph.  No one see's Marsha's 
paintings.   Painting is a very intimate experience and the 
painting's themselves are not for anyone else.  They are not 
profound.  Since realizing the mythos and logos are illusion, I play 
with my own symbolism.  Illusion is MY sandbox.   At the same time, I 
am too often a toy in the "Culture's" illusionary sandbox.

I'm sure this sounds nuts, but I don't much care.   Maybe I will find 
a better way to express this.

m



At 09:30 AM 2/13/2007, Arlo wrote:

[Marsha]
But that is exactly what it is for me.  I am manipulating symbols and 
spinning a
story with a brush.

[Arlo]
I've used the analogy in one of my classes that "Sculpture" is to "metaphor"
what "rotissiere building" is to "literal". Pirsig reminds us that even though
its been a while, the latter is a long-long cousin of the former.

""Well, it is art," I say. "This divorce of art from technology is completely
unnatural. It's just that it's gone on so long you have to be an
archeologist to find out where the two separated. Rotisserie assembly is
actually a long-lost branch of sculpture, so divorced from its roots by
centuries of intellectual wrong turns that just to associate the two sounds
ludicrous."" (ZMM)

I could say, "This divorce of metaphor from literal is completely unnatural.
It's just that it's gone on so long you have to be an archeologist to find
out where the two separated. Literal language is actually a long-lost branch of
metaphor, so divorced from its roots by centuries of intellectual wrong turns
that just to associate the two sounds ludicrous."

In this sense, please realize, that I use "art" and "metaphor" almost
interchangeably. Painting, dance, theatre, literature, poetry, music,
sculpture, design, weaving, landscaping, chautauquas, are all "art". But so,
too, is tea making, motorcycle maintenance, home building, gardening, brewing,
letter writing, cooking, woodworking, etc. This was for me a primary message of
ZMM. There are two ways to do anything. A Quality-filled, enthusiastic, artful,
Buddha-minded way, and a mundane, uninspired, quality-empty way. The elites
have told us that only "High Art" is "art". Pirsig reminds us that fixing our
motorcycles is a form of art as well.

To your point, I've argued that "art" (or "metaphor") is any act that uses
culturally-bound symbols in such a way as to allow those within that culture to
see beyond what their symbol-systems afford them to see. In other words, art is
the use of symbols to point at meaning that is forever outside its
symbol-system... aka Dynamic Quality.

Those who listen to Bach's Art of Fugue, and come away amazed at his skillful
mastery of contrapunctual composition, have gained appreciation for the
"literal", but those who, in engaging with the music, have an "out-of-body" or
"other-minded" moment when something inexpressible becomes clear, have touched
the "art". I often refer to that "other-mindedness" as "Flow". It can happen
during listening to Bach, or listening to Rage Against the Machine. We gauge
these on larger cultural scales as what has brought more people to flow over
longer periods of time.

Or take painting. If someone sees one of Marsha's paintings and is impressed
with her use of perspective only sees the literal form, but if in that moment
is swept away in a loss of self, then they have experienced "art". Or, the have
experienced "Dynamic Quality".