Emotion as a Way of Knowing

Visuals delineating my evolving emotional connection with crows.

Age 15-17:

Shoes for crows

Age 34:

Palliative Care: time measured by crows

Age 40-45

Breathing: more time and crows

Age 43-present

Art: home, protection and love.

"Show and Tell" I keep selecting sleep wear that I later discover has links to my childhood.

Knowledge Issues:

Can we hold others accountable for providing what we see clearly as bogus explanations for their choices? If we live in glass houses - or burning ones - should we really be throwing stones?

Related readings/links:

Jay Ingram, Chapter 6 "The Burning House" in The Burning House, 1994

Coincidences on ABC

What is a coincidence? by Arthur Kary

More on Smell and Memory

Shigeyuki Ito
answers some of
my questions
in his article
"Smell and Memory"
for
Serendip's Website.

John Sutton
writes about "Memory"
for Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The Art in Paper Cups and “Other” Insecurities

My fifteen year old son loves to torment me by mentioning, with respect to my work, a comment which was made during the opening of “The Box Projects” in July of 2005. In parting, a woman refered to my pieces as “clever” and my son thought this was hilarious.

It struck a cord with me as well which seems ironic since I do consider my work more akin to parlour magic than high art.

When a fellow artist recently visited my work space and saw what I was working on, she asked, “What's this?” My heart sank as I replied, “It's just a paper cup I'm making.”

I had spent the previous week very excited about the possibilities inherent in my paper “test” and to hear myself describe it in these terms reduced it to what I, no doubt, secretly feared could be the perception of “others”.

In my work , I strive to be true to the process. I honestly don't give a lot of thought to what others will think of individual pieces. What is of interest to me, is the process inherent in story making, the revisiting of my own assumptions, the maliability of "truth" in the things I remember.

This brings criticism (from both within and without). Technique aside – all my “paintings” have more to do with cutting in and filling, for example, because of what I learned while painting door jams – the content of my work may very well just be a re-hashing of things best forgotten.

I really don't believe that, but I often think that. And I often, both in my head and in crowds of people I love, I say so.

My brain is often a blur with questions about art, and I guess what it really boils down to is a question about what it really is. Why is it important? Is it? What is its relationship to knowledge? Is it possible for it to be a way of knowing? Is making paper cups important?

Perhaps only a clever person would know for sure.

Brave New World

I am re-reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Last night I finished Chapter XVI which has many interesting things to say about both Art and Science. I will, no doubt, have more to say about this novel and will update this post in due course. What I wish to share, at this time, is something perhaps far less important on any literary level.

I absolutely adore the smell of this book.

I am reading a copy which was purchased when I was about your age. I bought it in a musty secondhand bookstore following my first year of IB, and it has been stored in equally dank surroundings pretty much ever since. It's smell is intoxicating to me and, had my nose left a mark each time I leaned in to indulge, very few chapters would remain unsullied.

For now then, my reaction to the novel is limited to a few scattered thoughts and connections about olfactory senses:

-What role do olfactory senses play in "sense perception"?
-As a way of knowing, why is its connection with memory so strong?
-Phantoms in the Brain by V.S Ramachandran was my favourite Christmas read of 2007.
-Vilayanur Ramachandran speaks about synesthesia
in his Ted Talk, A journey to the center of your mind.