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12/03/2007: "Knots"

I can’t really tell what triggered what. If my interest in the East led me to embracing painting [I emphasize ‘embracing’], or if it was painting that led to the possibility of being interested in ideas we habitually situate in the Orient. Ideas, I must add, I completely refuted until well into my mid 20’s. In any case, painting and a growing fondness for things Tibetan were the grains of sand that would eventually bring the machine that kept me in University, and on a completely different track, to a standstill.

I can see how, to those watching me from outside of me, these two passions spelt disaster: painting was keeping me away from my studies and a promising future, and Buddhism was slowly but surely keeping me away from the habitual me they had grown accustomed to. Basically, they thought I had gone mad, and while I could feel the attraction for those ‘new’ ideas, I could feel with equal force how attempts were made to bring me back into the fold and I often found myself questioning my own sanity.



know the precise time the ‘venom’ was injected. 1976. I was an exchange student in Upstate New York with a couple of free periods on my schedule and Edward Nowak, the Art teacher, would sometimes call me in for a chat. The topics were always mysterious and the turpentine must have had something to do with it too, but in those days it was all too distant from what I wanted to do and so I shelved it. In one’s 20’s the outside world is too alluring, it is where it’s happenin’ and all that you aspire to be a part of; who has time, then, for introspection?

I’m not about to relate the story of my life, not on the forum, but what I am attempting to say is that I felt that Art required a great deal of introspection – time and hard work to discover and disentangle all the knots we have tied up inside ourselves so as to ease and enhance communication between the inner and the outer worlds. And in those days I didn’t have the time: too many distractions, too many exams to study for. I was still busy tying up those knots.

I think painting wiggled its way back in first. In 1978 I saw an exhibition of Magritte’s work that dealt a profound blow and led me to fill in the more boring lessons with surrealist sketches. It remained an all-consuming hobby in the years that followed. The crunch [and the mystical ideas of the East] started to gain weight a couple of years later when, having switched Universities from Brussels to Lisbon, I came face to face with the reality I had always intended to join and discovered it had gone awry. The revolutionary years [74 and 75] had been fiery and alive but had given way to a lukewarm cauldron of mediocrity [that sadly still simmers on]. Living long years away from home you tend to create a fantasised picture of what it really is.

It was in attempting to unravel the causes of this mediocrity – in particular how mediocrity and the lack of certain traits and qualities could pass for competence and intellectual brilliance – that I found myself increasingly turning to Eastern texts. And in turning to Eastern Philosophy I found myself entering parts of myself I had no previous knowledge of, discovering and attempting to fix the things I found there, before even dreaming of attempting to address the problems that needed tending to on the outside. I truly believed that it could only be thus.

On the threshold of adulthood and of taking a decision regarding the possible directions of my professional life I was kept back, I would say, by the possession of something akin to conscience and a need for integrity. Many people, I have found, are quite fortunate not to be burdened with such things and move on quite happily. What struck me most was that in the transition from the academic world to the professional, the knowledge acquired and the intelligent manipulation of the same did not necessarily come in a package that included a ‘Being’ that was up to the occasion: a result of too much academia and very little Life. More, that good use of those acquired faculties – the moral and ethically adequate choice – did not necessarily spell success within the professional choices I had ahead of me. On the contrary.

The critical point came when I was told that Eastern Philosophy had no place in a catholic University – a fellow-student had related to the University chaplain the contents of my personal library. It was made painfully clear that my future in international politics [the first steps having to be taken in my own country] would not be made easy if I chose to proceed along that path – that’s how strong a hold a small, tight-knit, society has on its people. And indeed, from that moment on and of my own doing, life in University became unbearable and increasingly meaningless. Certain things are non-negotiable.

I hope none of this comes across as sounding bitter. I feel no bitterness for having decided to move along this path. When I look at the parallel path I could have followed I have great difficulty seeing myself there. The signs were timely and strong enough to provoke a reaction in me, and I acted upon them. I doubt, seriously, that if I had not embraced painting I would have been capable of moving on beyond the mere intellectual appreciation of the ideas that I had found in books and taken myself to India and Tibet. Painting – embracing painting and burning all the bridges with that other parallel path – triggered a sequence of events that I would not trade for all the money in this world. Art helps me find and understand the knots I tie within me, it keeps me whole.

Replies: 17 Comments

on Saturday, December 8th, leo said

fascinating... hope there will more to come.

on Friday, December 7th, Ellen said

You are right, Jose: If one is completely whole, what is there left to seek? If one is victorious always, what battles are left to fight? One becomes stagnant and complacent. Art is about (for me) growth and the quest.

on Friday, December 7th, jose said

That sounds like quite an experience you had Ellen. At the outset I was a bit weary of posting this blog, ‘spirituality’, ‘the inner world’, whatever you wish to call it is always a sensitive subject, but it was all that I could come up with this time. I feel relieved that I managed to go about it in a way that hasn’t offended anybody [so far], and that it has shown us that we stand on common ground. We approach it and use it in different ways but we seem to recognize the validity of the process. Andrew, the analogy of the chess game is very good. Of course, when I wrote ‘art keeps me whole’ I should have written ‘art helps keep me whole’. Wholeness is never there for good, it is elusive, one day you believe you’ve found it and the next your clutching at straws [I believe that’s how you say it, right?]; one minute you’re almost there and the next you are lost and forgot completely how you got there the last time. We have to be constantly aware of what’s happening on the board and just how much we have our King well within our grip, just like in chess as you well pointed out. Most importantly I would add, we have to accept that victory isn’t always ours: that’s what brings to the forth the new lessons we have to master in life and the magic of unexpected results in our work.

on Friday, December 7th, Ellen said

Food for very much thought! There are forces all around me that move me in directions: I go with them. I was raised in a formally religious Jewish home. I believe that art gave me a wholeness and a source of ethics, values and a foundation for being. Art gave me the ability to be truly open to ideas from many sources. Art has allowed me to embrace a wide number of cultures and traditions from the Native American concepts of spirit, to the religious art of Western cultures, to Eastern philosophies. Oddly, I came across a book by the Sumi Master, Moto Oi today. I studied Sumi brush painting for three years with him in the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens (what a setting for Sumi: a fabulous garden!) almost 40 years ago. It was a painting/religious experience that I'm glad I had the opportunity to participate in and through which I learned a great deal about art, life and the flow of energy in the universe..... Great blog, Jose & wonderful responses. I love Philip Glass, too & Ravi Shankar (Glass' mentor, I heard) whom I heard in concert several times.

on Thursday, December 6th, Andrew said

If we think about the meaning of the word 'integrity', we will find it means being one. You used it in the middle of your discussion, and closed by saying art kept you 'whole'. As opposed to being 'disintegrated'. And to take things one step further, a sort of morality lines up side by side with this word 'integrity', at least the way I like to use it. Perhaps it means you're convinced of what you're doing, and all of your parts move together in harmony to reach your objectives.
Something to strive towards.
There's another way to look at this. If life is a chess game, while you can always allow yourself to be a pawn in someone else's game, in your own, you are the king. Everything depends on you. So whatever you choose to do, at least conduct yourself as your place demands you to.

on Wednesday, December 5th, Mark said

Jose,
"Look within" that says it all. In my case and many others art, in what ever form it takes, painting, writing, music, etc, helps us to look within. But one can do so in other ways as well. When I wander about the woods where I live, I feel so much a part of the world, I can think and look inwardly. truth is when I paint I do not think inwardly, at least not consciously, maybe on a more simple level, but much thought comes before the work and at times of rest as the work progresses.

As for words, religion, spirituality, science being just different ways for individuals to reach the same place (if I get your meaning right, Jose) I do not agree. I wish it where so. Trouble is words have very strong concreat meanings to some and that is what often puts religion and science at odds, or religion at odds with the world as a whole. It can be what makes a practice, a word, an institution, become so seperate from the human element and it is the human that makes the above what it is, but it takes on a life of it's own and leaves the human behind, no longer providing for the human or being there for the human but being for only itself. I believe the primitives (for lack of a better word) have it right, spirituality, religion and even science are all the same. One does not need a God to give answers, to give reason, one only needs to look inwardly and they will find it.

on Wednesday, December 5th, jose said

We often stumble on the words and stop ourselves from going deeper because of all the emotional and intellectual baggage a particular word carries with it for us. Religion is one such word, Mark, and yet you seem to have found the way to go deeper into what it points at. Religion, spirituality, science, etc. are merely words that hint at different ways of approaching our yearning for integrity or that which you have expressed in your comment.

Unfortunately, when we speak about religion the first thing that springs to mind is the appeal that the one we embrace, or not, has for us and the resistance or negation of the validity of others. Why? Because most of the philosophical systems in which we have been brought up in have molded our minds to react in such a way. Very often the culprit or instigator of such limiting ideologies are the religious institutions themselves [I very much agree with you Mark], in their insecurity and quest for power and control.

That with which religion occupies itself is the guidance of a certain aspect of mankind [we need not label it, because the label again would make us stumble] that is not sated by his material achievements. We must focus on the deficit. Having focused on the deficit and accepted that we yearn to satisfy it in equal, if not greater, measure to our material well-being we will come to the conclusion that there is an ‘inner dimension’ to us that does require tending to. Again, let us not label it, it is universal and common to all traditions and walks of life.

Let us take the ‘Allegory of the Flood’ for instance. For us ‘westerners’ it is part of a bulk of stories that went into the making of the Old Testament. Noah’s Ark. All too often the Bible, instead of relying solely on being the repository of a certain knowledge, is used as proof of a certain superiority of the so called ‘West’ over other cultures and ideas. What happens to this claim when we discover similar allegories in other civilizations, some dating from well before contact is known to be had with the West?

What about:

The Dreamtime flood of the aborigines, woramba, and the Ark Gumana; The Hindu tale of Manu and Vishnu’s avatar in the form of a fish who returned to warn Manu about an imminent flood and told him to build a boat, stocking it with samples of every species; what about the Mayan story of how God sent the flood because the people made from wood (an early version of humans) had no souls, minds or hearts and had forgotten how they were made. The people tried to escape, but the animals that they had starved and beaten, the pots they had burnt, and the trees they'd stripped refused to help them. What about the Aztec, the Hopi, the people of the Palau islands, Tahiti, the Mandingo, what about Nuu and the ark that landed on top of Mauna Kea. And I could go on and on.

In all probability many of the allegories and beliefs that went into the Book were updated versions of Sumerian an Babylonian tales

So, where does all this leave Western spiritual superiority?

My point being, and forgive me for taking so long, that all those allegories we find in our very own Bible are universal. They were meant to guide the peoples of those particular places and times in travelling through an inner sea of turmoil. The Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, Babel… are not ours alone. Deliverance is not our prerogative alone. It is Universal. It is part of the energy field within which we operate.

No religion as such is truly involved unless we take it for its original meaning – to re-link or reconnect. Integrity, wholeness, deliverance [if you like] are universal but the reconnection must be made individually.

Is it possible for Art to point us in that direction? To help us focus a little more on the inwardly and the things that need tending to at that level, instead of the frustration the outwardly has more than proven to provide for in abundance?

I know it’s not hip to admit it, I know the critics ridicule this notion, but I believe that this is what ART is meant for. It doesn’t bring along answers, it shouldn’t even bother with the answers, but it should make us look within.

Sorry that took so long.

[ Just noticed wwar had this publicized a while ago:

The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama"
2007-12-01 until 2007-03-16
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
San Francisco, CA, USA ]

on Wednesday, December 5th, jose said

Mark, Cecil, Brad, I won't be able to reply to your comments to the full extent that I would wish to right now - have to go make preparations for an open-studio/cheese and wine party we're going to have tomorrow. Will reply asap.

on Wednesday, December 5th, Brad Michael Moore said

Jose', Your blog is providing a nice read along with it's comments. I usually look at life simply, or try to keep to the basics when it comes to the processes I now endeavor. In first grade I was ridiculed for being stubborn by choosing to be a southpaw when, I, like everyone else in my class, could write right-handed. I decided I didn't want to be like everyone else. It seems like I've always gone against the grain every since. As a maturing artist, when I became more convinced that my success, as an artist, had more to do with politics, brown-nosing, who I knew, or how my road had been traveled - I just let go of my earlier belief systems. I'm still stubborn in my way to this day. Life continues to influence me, but I no longer have a true need of acknowledgment. That want is too filtering upon the clarity of my most natural inclinations. As I think you are saying, the process of art making provides, finally, the engaging importance of life's gains - the sustenance of movement and recognizable amending of self-identity. In the outflow, we may find acknowledgment for our wares, but it is the glowing inward that guides our best sense of art showing its truest value during our own existence.

on Tuesday, December 4th, cecil Herring said

Jose: I think your third paragraph from the bottom in your reply to my comments reveals your wonderful and succinct ability to communicate an abstract and subjective concept of "inner and outer manifestations."

I like your words "Now, for the discussion at hand, let us forget Buddhism or any other ‘ism’, and focus on what actually took place. A certain reverberation on the inside met with a reverberation from the outside and something happened. ...What is important is that when it happens you are not left indifferent, and I mean this not in a purely intellectual way by which you are left pondering and attempting to make sense of the contradicting signs that assail you. I mean indifferent in the sense that when faced with it [music, text, work of art…] the overall feeling is one of wholeness – of you and the work of art being one – and it feeds you with a certain type of assurance or energy that helps carry you on along a path you felt was momentous but perhaps felt doubtful about."

Amazing words to me and a paragraph that helps me greatly. Jose, you are a very talented writer and even a mystic in the making, having the ability to write words about phenomena not seen or heard to create a new language of vision.

I am always happy to discover someone who understands piercing into areas we know so well but cannot talk about. Perhaps that is why we make art. It is always a challenge to keep that taut line between the conscious and unconcious and not fall into a maudlin licking of the surface.

Fine art is a language of vision without words. You clarified a long standing confusion about my work and give me hope I will be able 'get it' without equivocation.

on Tuesday, December 4th, Mark said

I do not believe in religion (I too was raised catholic but at an early age just could not buy into it) nor do I beleive in the god or gods man has created for his own comfort or disconfort. But I do believe in a spirituality, I do beleive that a non-believer can be just as moral and giving as a religious one, and even more. I beleive that one should treat others well because that is just the right thing to do and I raised my children with that idea. I beleive too that creating is what can bring out the spirituality in a person, can help a person find that spark that makes us individuals. I was once asked by a student of mine (a practicing Budhist from Thailand) if I was Budhist. She based her question on my ideas and beliefs of art and life which I believe to be the same, I of course told her I was not. Let those beleive what they wish to believe so long as it causes no harm to others, shame most religions can not say they have not harmed anyone, but that is a different disscusion. I do think that creating helps us to define who we are and what we feel and think and can allow us to see beyond that which is in front of us in ways that those who do not create can not. Does that make us better then others? No, just a different view.

on Tuesday, December 4th, walt said

Yes. I avoid quite a number of them myself these days. Maybe to my financial detriment. But I feel better for it.

on Tuesday, December 4th, jose said

Walt, Raj spoke about portals in the previous blog. Whatever tools we decide to use to create them, be they religious or scientific, as long as we are attempting to create that portal, that is the fundamental thing, I believe. Whether people wish to wander through them or not is beyond our control. I know a few portals I need not wander through myself... maybe my vibration is too shallow, maybe be I'm dim-witted and insensitive, but I fail to feel the urge to go through the new Turner Prize for instance.

on Tuesday, December 4th, walt said

Jose, I'm not sure I'm quite awake enough this morning to enter in to these thoughts. But I'm intrigued by them. Most seem to want only a pretty picture of a landscape-- someplace beautiful where they might like to live, a still life of beautiful flowers-- color for their living room, or a representation of their Aunt Agnes so they can invite their friends who will say things like "oooh, it looks just like her...she always wore too much rouge and eye liner. Don't you think?"

But for me, and I think certain others, art is about piecing together a vision of the world (universe/cosmos) in such a way as to create an integrated picture...an understanding. I often talk about it making a work of art in the same phrases as I would talk about making a prayer. I am myself a lapsed Catholic who knew too much and had too many unanswered questions. But I still have a faith of sorts...hard to define...much harder to discuss in words. My sense of religion is that it is about wholeness, integrity and peace. If it does something else it isn't working properly. Painting gets at the heart of it for me.

So how do you take something that seems...well...sacred and lay it out in front of minds and hearts that see only comfort, the surface of things, expect only the moment, the next trend, the fashionable... or worse-- wearable status? My answer is that you don't. You don't put it out there for them. They may come, may even like some of it, might even buy something. But they are not the ones you do it for. I am not evangalistic with my work. I make it out of my faith, for God or the universe if you like. Then for me. And, in that sense, for anyone who feels something like I do. It's the only way I can make what I make and have it make any sense. And its a funny thing. Even when someone tells me they don't get it I will ask them a few questions about what they see in the work and low and behold they do get it...at least the gist of it. It may not move them like it does me but they do have more of an understanding than they're willing to admit.

on Tuesday, December 4th, jose said

It’s equivalent to a climb, I agree with you there Brad. And as in every successful climb we have to be willing to accept the need to retreat to a lower place before moving on, and be prepared for the falls. One of those falls, for me, was the realisation that even within the realm of art – especially in our fields – the direction I had taken went against the grain of what the critics claim art is meant to be about.

I’m glad you bring Philip Glass into this Cecil, because I feel it can help me make my point on an issue I sense the three of us agree on. Back in the early stages I didn’t know Glass was into Buddhism, I appreciated his music without connecting it necessarily. The first connection happened in 1991 shortly before returning to India. I was waiting for an interview at a gallery I would later work with for a few years and the music, a particular piece I had never heard before, held a grip on me. I could sense it was Glass but I felt the need to know what it was, I wanted to possess it, to be able to buy the record and listen to it whenever I wanted. The first thing I asked upon starting the interview was what piece of music had been playing while I had waited and I was told it was from the album Solo Piano by Philip Glass. It wasn’t until a few months later when I was able to find the CD that the ‘click’ took place. Reading in the booklet I discovered that the particular piece I had listened to had been written by Glass for the occasion of the Dalai Lama’s first public address in NYC in 1981.

Now, for the discussion at hand, let us forget Buddhism or any other ‘ism’, and focus on what actually took place. A certain reverberation on the inside met with a reverberation from the outside and something happened. I’ll leave the descriptions of what happens open because they are manifold and not necessarily present for all those involved or at all times. What is important is that when it happens you are not left indifferent, and I mean this not in a purely intellectual way by which you are left pondering and attempting to make sense of the contradicting signs that assail you. I mean indifferent in the sense that when faced with it [music, text, work of art…] the overall feeling is one of wholeness – of you and the work of art being one – and it feeds you with a certain type of assurance or energy that helps carry you on along a path you felt was momentous but perhaps felt doubtful about. Not-indifferent, in the sense that it MOVES you and does not merely lead you to intellectual masturbation and the ensuing loss of vital energy.

To my great disadvantage the current trend, most popularly acclaimed by the critics and the glitterati, is that of the latter kind.

There is no need to act like an enigmatic oriental, Cecil, you have only to take a peek into a Tibetan monastery to see how easily distracted, sociable and entirely cheery the Tibetans can be… in spite of the madness that has befallen in their homeland. I hope you come across them some day.

on Monday, December 3rd, Cecil Herring said

I don't understand it either, Jose. I noticed my slow 'subversion'from Methodism about 25 years ago when I started listening to Phillip Glass music. His music is influenced by Buddhist chants, repetitive beats and bells and gongs. I don't really understand it but it all positively sends me into outer space and I forget who I am or maybe I become more of who I am, a strange sort of zoning out and wanting to paint mindlessly. Once and for all I would love just give myself over to it and never look back. I think for me it will take a change of personaity. I am entirely too cheery and sociable and easily distracted. I don't act like an enigmatic oriental. But secretly I am eastern, have been all my life.
Glass wrote music for a movie I adore called Kundun, about how the Dalai Lama was run out of Tibet by Chinese communists who of course can't have anybody sitting around chanting, ringing bells and making sand paintings! Somehow I am as bad as a Communist, so strict on myself. I think I really need to study Buddhism but I don't know how or anymore who does.
Good for you that you recognize your trend and can go for it. Cecil

on Monday, December 3rd, Brad Michael Moore said

Life is an interesting mix of decisions we make and decisions that are made for us all along our way. Being self-realized is always a matter of degrees in a light's spectrum that varies between it's source and ourselves. In between is an atmosphere around a mountain range where clouds build up on one side and fog flows off the backside while it is clear as crystal above. Our perspective moves constantly up and around this range. Our quest is to make it up to the clear air and stabilize our footing to best catch the vistas all around... Whatever flows from that bliss is as good as it gets.