Thursday, June 27, 2013

Facing the void

Prabal, as I never saw before

Last week, a session that moved me so much!

The theme was emptiness.
I have a book I received in another era, the book of Dao,
A book in Hebrew that is beautifully translated from English that is translated from Chinese.

And I translated verse 11 to english as a theme for Last Sunday:

Emptiness

Thirty spokes unite
at a wheel's center  (in hebrew - also, it's bellybutton :)
Except the spokes -
emptiness
is most of it

The clay pot -
its main use is its space

Therefore
nothingness has a role,
the emptiness has form

A house
is squares of air.
A door between two rooms
just connects the air,
A window connects a square space
with the big void
outside

Sometimes

the is

is

just

an excuse

and a wrapping,

and the nothingness

is

the real

treasure.

-------------

So we tried drawing around the subjects, their outside, what holds them.

All works were incredible, and the body of them all moved me, it is like we drew the emptiness that fills the whole museum.
There were statues drawn without the main character, drawing of the molecules filling the space that has an absent artist, carving the space out of a harp, around a banister, and carving a hugging couple out of its marble, but I have no photos of this (yet!, anyone who was there, pleeze send me some!), 

I DO have two sets that are totally magnificent!

Marie's work:
The one above almost made me cry, the three missing vases with the three empty spaces behind them, the striking sunshine, with the perspective acting as sun rays, the arbitrary break of the red lines that indicate the void and pulls your attention to the middle one, and the small vase near it.



Carving space with words, lines and colors, another tryptic.  


Look at the clash of spaces, how they share the same paper without invading each other.
Pots, people, statues, all are surrounded in the same way. (equal in the eyes of god? naaa, I get carried away! or do I?)


Once a good friend of mine told me she adores the mix of words and images, look here. 


And this one brings so much emotion! 
I could talk a lot about the different textures that make this one, the absence of line defining the two spaces, about the slanted window, the lower line that cuts the window out like a pair of scissors that you used for a bit too much and may be sorry for...
But I won't, just look at it.

--------

And now, for the work of François, the emotional pallet turns to pure joy.
Just look here:


And the last one, a drawing of a dark painting behind a marble statue

And one thing I like in the above photo is the direction of the black which is the inverse of the direction of the carving on the top of the page. see it?

Oh, And I just found another one, a work by Nina, who sat the whole session and drew the molecules around an Isle and an umbrella...


I am grateful.

2 comments:

  1. Great post!
    I like to see Maries's drawings again and
    I hope other people will post their work aswel!

    Here is a translation in french of the poem
    (that is better than the chinese-english-hebrew-englsih-french translation I did for Nathalie last sunday):

    Trente rayons se partagent un moyeu
    Dont le wu permet l’utilité
    L’eau et l’argile deviennent ustensiles
    Dont le wu permet l’usage
    Une pièce comporte portes et fenêtres
    Dont le wu permet l’habitation
    Ainsi, le « il y a » procure l’avantage
    Et le « il n’y a pas » l’usage

    here is where I've found it:
    http://sensdutao.over-blog.com/article-chapitre-11-daode-jing-le-wu-116845792.html
    they explain a bit the "wu" (=void but difficult to translate) concept.

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  2. I like the 1st one, because it just sends a lot of positive energy, the lines, the color, its just so alive. I also like the last one because its striking and intense the stain of black and the silhouette....

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