15 May 2010I bought this piece of artwork. It's a 3 dimensional wire drawing of two coffee cups.
Having worked in an art school and art gallery for the last 13 years, you’d think the exposure to art every day would have lured me in.
But this is the first piece of art I have ever bought. Art is not a passion of mine, but I know for many it is an expresison of creative energy and gives meaning to their life - for me it is yoga and spiritual practice that give meaning and context to my life and connect me into the ultimate source of all energy.
But back to the artwork by Kate Morkunas. I have known Kate for years, she was a student at the art school here and for a short period she braved the elements and came surfing with me on weekends.
I love the emptiness of her wire sculptures, the transparency, the delicate shadow lines cast on the table below, the surprise of lines appearing and disappearing depending on your point of view – the lines aren’t fixed like a two dimensional drawing - you look at the cups from one side and they look perfectly drawn in three dimensional space. You move a little to the left or right and the entire outline of a cup disappears.
Emptiness.
This is the key. It is my obsession. It is my practice. Emptiness occurs when we drop all ideas of self.
No self, no problems.
No views and opinions.
I’ve noticed my increasing sensitivity to people with self-righteous tendencies, which seems to be most people to some degree or other. We all have this compulsive need to express our opinions about life, society, governments, the cause of disease, mental illness, climate change, education, and all that is supposedly wrong with the world and the people in it (except us of course). Its called conversation.
I listen politely, and seeing this self-opinionated tendency in others as they try to impress me with their views, I also see it in myself.
I watch my own tendency to respond or interject with my own opinion, even a simple nod in agreement is an opinion. I watch the different thoughts arising around the subject many times during a conversation, and I trace their origins back to the desire to assert my uniquely crafted personality onto the world. I just watch it all...and it keeps me silent.
Conversations have become very one-sided.
I once read that as soon as we judge someone, we have cut ourselves off from seeing them clearly. Where there is judgement there is closure, and no room to love.
Step one - the recognition of our need to BE someone unique and special and how our judgements, views and opinions furnish, support and solidify the personality we've constructed (ego), then becoming aware of how we try to validate and enhance the ego by expressing those opinions to others.
Step two - the gradual dissolution of all views and opinions - only possible with the dissolution of the ego.
Because of all this, I don’t talk much any more. Nor do I write much any more.
(which explains why this blog has been withering away over time)
The silence feels pure.
“The only view which has validity is a view which sees the total changeability of all conditioned things.”
“Viewpoints are only viewpoints and the whole of this world and we in it are different from what we appear to be, once absolute reality is penetrated.”
(Ayya Khema)
Emptiness.
Nobody home.
"Kate Morkunas’ gentle wire sculptures of cut glass goblets, wine bottles and espresso cups are more air than anything else but rather than feeling physically empty, they seem spiritually enriched. The glass is definitely half full in Morkunas’ world as her tabletop tableaux speak of the power of ordinary objects to enrich our lives and carry meaning. The work also has an equal relationship with the wall behind and the plinth it rests on as the objects oscillate between two dimensions and three dimensions. The shifting shadow tones on the wall become a backdrop to the hollow forms, gently suggesting a palette derived from Giorgio Morandi. The ritual sharing of food and drink with loved ones gives space to emotional needs which are here embodied in delicate wire. From the most humble of beginnings, comes the serenest of sentiments. Morkunas’ objects ultimately ask us to make time for our own contemplation."
An excerpt from the exhibition catalogue for Stone's Throw by Julia Robinson.