I prefer silence to noise, wild places to cities.
I choose minimal before clutter and haikus over poetry.
I like the potential of an empty white space of paper for a drawing or words to form magic on.
But I know that spaces can be difficult things too.
Spaces
where loved ones used to be
in the store cupboard
where living (rather than existing) used to happen
not found in a home that isn’t safe.
My own life isn’t so much filled with spaces right now as fragments
of
family connection
exercise
ingredients
reading
drawing and writing.
Bits of day
taken
snatched
found
pulled
to not so much make a whole
but more of a holey thing.
A paper doilie perhaps
or if I’m doing things particularly well
a piece of lace.
As an art student drawing within a frame of paper edges
I learned that negative shapes were as important as positive ones.
Bypassing conventional ways of describing is to trick the brain by following the outlines of non things
the gaps between
the shadows behind
the emptiness surrounding.
An eye-hand flow of counter intuitive tracing reveals a world seen but not understood.
The absence of things brings new understanding to their presence.
As a student of Humanities I read Aristotle’s philosophy on the stuff of space.
He considered that voids contained
atoms
particles
specks of stuff
aether.
Aether is the medium where vibrations happen.
Light, sound and electromagnetic radiation permeate and flow in the interstices of space.
Probably some other things too.
Perhaps what we think is space is actually where the things that matter are happening
ideas appear
feelings surface
people grow.
Leaving spaces in art, writing and life ( not filling it all in) gives
viewers
readers
listeners
chances to experience all the possibilities that the aether can offer.
I don’t know what whole I am trying to make with this piece of writing.
I suspect I am making another holey thing.
Art mimicking life as fragments
found
snatched
pulled
held
by threads that connect
to make some sort of pattern
or a papery web of some sort on which to build.
