the_amarant

Question:
...Do you think we, as infinite individuals ... need to really assume meaning into this universe or does it already exist, regardless of our beliefs? Don't get me wrong, I love philosophy, but there is always a fundamental folly to any doctrine, unless it is the basis for its belief- that is to believe that one intellectual pursuit pervades all else.

Humans are quite conceited. We believe our perception is dominant. We care less about the unknown and infinite than we do the familiar. The belief to me that beauty does not exist naturally is absurd. I wouldn’t go as far as to say all existentialists believe this to be true, Nietzsche himself was a strict believer in aestheticism.

I suppose a question such as this can often lead to the subject of a divine being or a preceding essence to all that is life. Regardless I would like to hear your judgment, estimation or belief.

In Responce:
I feel that beauty is a construct of our own individual imaginations. To me beauty lies in inspiration. I believe something is beautiful when it grabs a part of me, when it inspires me to think or feel in that instant. I find that many things we perceive to be beautiful do occur naturally, but would those things be beautiful if we were not here to observe them? Certainly they would continue to exist, but would they hold any meaning without us to prescribe it? Who or what would they mean that something to?

I believe that it is up to us as individuals to seek our own meaning - to define our own existence. Perhaps it's possible that a greater meaning lays hiding in the ebb and flow of our universe, patiently waiting for each of us to tap into it's endless resources of connectivity and synchronicity. We can never be sure.

It is true that I have found interesting coincidences while in states of heightened self awareness - I'd like to believe that those things are signaling that I am on the right track for my life. On that topic, however, I'd like to state also that I do not find it plausible that the possibility of a synchronic universe resides within the idea of a higher power nor with the divine. I find it much more agreeable that the idea is once more nothing more than my own inner construct, and as that plays a large role in my own definition of meaning for my life.

Thoughts?

I was watching moths swarm streetlights on the hillsides, and they flickered as small embers in the distance; illuminated in the moment - as was I.
While sitting on that hill I remembered a metaphor someone once told me; that moths must be the closest relative to humans, that they are the only other creature drawn to the light which kills them. Though spoken with some melancholy, I smiled upon my remembrance. Perhaps the moth does not crave the flame in folly nor naievity. It's as though that light were a form of enlightenment - the enlightenment so many humans lose the path to, or ignore. For even if the moth never faced the light, and flew the streets in enveloped darkness, he still would meet his end, never consumed by the flame and fury.

I have touched the flame, I am basked in it's illumination, my face in shadow through the darkness and half new moon.
I have grazed my fingers through the brazen glow. I have burned, I am burning, I shall burn again.
(Thus hath the candle singed the moth.)

At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman, and these hills, the softness of the sky, the outline of these trees at this very minute lose the illusory meaning with which we had clothed them, henceforth more remote than a lost paradise. The primitive hostility of the world rises up to face us across millennia.

For a second we cease to understand it because for centuries we have understood in it solely the images and designs that we had attributed to it beforehand, because henceforth we lack the power to make use of that artifice. The world evades us because it becomes itself again. That stage scenery masked by habit becomes again what it is.

--Albert Camus The Myth of Sisyphus

An ambiguous animation painted on public spaces.


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Debcha sez, "This is an incredibly arresting stop-motion video, both in technique and content. Entirely composed of paintings on public walls, sidewalks, and other spaces, it follows a creature as it undergoes a mindbending series of transformations - mating, mutating, and mitosing through multiarmed monsters, scuttling spiders, a herd of teeth, and more. Considerable visual wit is in evidence, as the paintings interact with their substrates - a trompe d'oeil brick falls out of a wall, pieces of paper are snatched with a froglike tongue, and hiding places are found in the corners of crumbling walls. Watching and re-watching it consumed way too much of my time today. (and it's CC-licensed - share and enjoy!)"Link.

from BoingBoing.

I never knew if you read the LiveJournal entry I posted a few days after our return from California. To be honest, I wasn't sure that I wanted to know. I had posted in hopes that you might read it and know, regardless of future matters, that you had inspired an overwhelming emotion. That, even if nothing were ever to transpire between us again, I had felt something in that moment, and that thinking so much even once made it as real and true as anything ever could be, if only for an instant.

My mind is still cloudy. My wounds are not healed, and I can not quite place what, if anything, it is that I'm looking for. It seems pertinent at this point for me to be alone; yet, as days grow longer I find it harder to push a sense of longing from my mind at a glance in your direction. It's true that I've often found my lips longing for a smooth caress from your skin, but while my free-spirited side swoons at the idea of opportunity, my rationale speaks better of it. I'm unsure of my mind and it's intent, and the last thing I'd want is to drag you along at your heart's expense, all due to an exposure of my own inner whim.

It's such a strange and detached relationship we share, pretending not to know what's alive in each other's head, scared to speak of such things lest our friendship meet a screeching halt. (Then again the whole world seems to live in this fashion, scared to face controversies, scared of what others might think; though our situation is undoubtedly touchier than most.)
Well, let me be the first to brave the storm, and throw fear to the wind. Here is my truth:

The longer I know you, the more your presence helps fill my soul. You are an incredible individual, and while you still have growing left to do (and don't we all? and what would the point be if any of us were ever to reach a point in which we didn't have more room to grow?! ..but I digress...) I want to experience you. I want to see more of the beauty I've watched pour from your fingertips. I want to know your lips, just once, clear and without alcohol's muddled assistance...
As I said earlier, my mind is still cloudy, and I'm not really certain what it is that I'm trying to propose here, but more than anything I just want you to know what I am thinking. I want you to know who I am.

Poppies illuminate the roadside in silhouette against an otherwise drab and uninspiring landscape--

-- A pleasant reminder that we too can re-emerge after a winter gone too cold; a way to thrive, despite our own desert and drought.

I am so excited for this...



synopsis:
A new wave of craft is capturing the attention of the nation. It has emerged as a marriage between historical technique, punk and the D.I.Y. ethos while being influenced by traditional handiwork, modern aesthetics, politics, feminism and art. It is no longer just about cross-stitching samplers or painting floral scrolls on china. Instead, it has increased its realm to embrace an emerging movement of artists, crafters and designers working in traditional and nontraditional mediums and methodologies to intervene in mass-market consumerism, to challenge the familiar and to attempt creative and economic freedom. This movement created by craft forges a new economy, lifestyle and burgeoning art community that is based on creativity, determination and networking.

The heart of the new wave of craft is the community. Artists, crafters, makers, organizers, critics, curators, cultural theorists and historians come together to create a community that shares the desire to produce change through the passion to create. By sharing ideas and encouragement they work together to nurture entrepreneurialism, preserve feminine heritage and wield great economic power. Through websites, blogs and online stores individuals in this widespread community can stay virtually tight-knit while boutiques, studios, galleries and craft fairs connect to the greater public to inspire and to promote.

With the use of stop motion animation the opening credits will set the tone of a community that works creatively giving a 1970’s art’s and craft’s feel, saturated with color, but with a modern aesthetic twist, possibly using the designs of featured makers. The theme from the opening credits will continue throughout the film, threading together the talking heads, interweaving stories of the community members, events, places and studios we visited; showing the “movement” through-out the country on a map, with animated sewing, painting, knitting, etc.

For more information visit this link, and if click here if you'd like to shop and support!

To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.

--Henry David Thoreau

I am confused.
To say the very least, I am confused about a great many things and again, many more.

I do know that I often miss your heat while thinking of run down hotel rooms with stains of shiny lip-gloss kisses, and sleeping on hard and unfamiliar floors.

I know also that, sometimes, watching your sleeping cheeks finds my heart overflowing; and that sometimes, I catch my mind sneaking her fingers across a memory of your lips.

Beyond this there is only uncertainty; a fuzzy snow-storm of a cloud that hangs low over my eyelids and brings a numbness to my bones, and there can be no promises.

I can't say that I know much when it comes to street art, but every once in a while I stumble upon a graffiti artist that absolutely blows me a way.

After discovering Bansky in about 2005, and falling 100% in love, I later found and followed the Space Invader project, and actually spotted one of their pieces in L.A. while on my ridiculous bus adventure. (I have to admit that I had a complete "squeee!" moment, and was utterly disappointed when no one understood why I was so excited.)

Anyway, Swoon is one of those people who's art breaks my heart out of pure genius. Through intricate paper cutting she combines the idea of both wheat pasting and stencilry, executing her pieces with a near perfection. She also seems to have the keen ability of showcasing the nature of both the mundane and fantastical. I'm in love.

You can find more of her art on this flicker tag pool. Now go revel in the beauty!

It's good that we have the distance to cushion us. Our minds groping out for one another across the miles of sky and open road. Too far away to easily fall into the sticky pitch of one another's heart. It is far better to climb the branches of the other's conception, till our leaves intertwine with overgrowth and young sapling sprigs. And once our canopy is full and plush, we may take that leap together, and from the up-most bough fall slow as feathers into the soft spot of our wooden cores.

It's getting cold here, and the air is crisp and clean, and stings my eyes and ears. It's absolutely beautiful, despite the chill. Ice has been forming in all the puddles on the sidewalks; I jump on the frozen spots and imagine I'm breaking the glass that surrounds me. I'm breaking free of my constraints a little at a time.