Art and Autobiography
I grew up with a father who was interested in all things metaphysical. My mother was the opposite. She was extremely practical.
Lemonade, everything was so infinite. Kafka said this (or rather, wrote it, he could no longer speak) as he lay dying. I am intrigued by this phrase. Perhaps meaning lies somewhere between my metaphysically inclined father and my practical mother, who kept things to reuse, as I do?
Something and nothing, loud and soft, speaking and silence. Things you can name or not, but you sometimes recognize their nomenclature. I juxtapose these with, or on top of, scribbles, stripes, checks, blots, circles, squares and triangles (the ineffable language of abstraction).
It is not impossible in the unrestrained conversing that among disjunct, remote, disproportionate ensembles, at moments, harmonies of incalculable resonance occur. Helene Cixous
Confronting the writing of Clarice Lispector, Helene Cixous felt she was hearing angel’s footsteps.
Some-thing and no-thing. I long for the possibility of ancient melodies that are resoundingly present—like angel's footsteps.
Jo Smail
2007