Development of The Image:
SHE comes 4th
Thirty-four years ago an
ecstatic event illuminated my mind and altered my approach to making art. Shortly
after that my mind flashed with an “electrifying” profundity as I stumbled
through the decoding of Marcel Duchamp’s enigmatic “Large Glass.” It was then at
the age of thirty-one after this awakening that I finally stopped looking to
art for support. My singular focus since the age of three has been making art. Realizing
that if I was creatively gifted, that by receiving those abilities I owed everything
and nothing was owed to me. I began to understand that the reason for being
given a gift is because in return the world needs
you to give it back. At that moment
I stepped on a creative path asking the universe to make me of loving service with its gift; and so it has without fail for the past
three decades.
At the home of friends on the winter
solstice, December 22, 2011, I showed a body of work to the public for the
first time in 33 years. I was celebrating my 65th birthday with the
unveiling a new art piece. It also marked the mid-point of my thirty-third year
journeying into regions opened by Marcel Duchamp. The new work I showed was
based on Duchamp’s “Bottle Rack,” which he purchased in Paris in 1914. This
common drying rack was both the precursor and prototype to Duchamp’s famous
Ready-mades. Infamous among them was the urinal signed, “R. Mutt.” In 1917, incongruously
displayed on its back and titled “Fountain,” this commercial plumbing fixture was
surreptitiously entered for an exhibition by Duchamp. After all, it was he who
quipped: “America has given the world
her plumbing and her bridges.”
In
the 1960s, toward the end of his life, Duchamp was asked about his enigmatic
“Bottle Rack.” In his usual tongue-in-cheek manner, he lamented with a subtle
admonishment: “Ah! My poor old Bottle Rack and still no bottles!” So, like a
dog on a bone, I decided after 33 years to answer Marcel with my own
tongue-in-cheek condolence. On black velvet
I boldly spelled out in four-inch brass letters… “THERE THERE MARCEL THEIR
THERE.” Above this Gertrude Stein-like statement was a trompe l’oeil
construction made in three flat-stacked layers of 1/16th inch
balsa wood that recreated Duchamp’s “Bottle Rack.” It had been coated in white
gesso and then illustrated in silver point. To heighten the deception I
replaced the central illusionistic prong with a real metal one and hung a
champagne bottle. On its field of black velvet the “Bottle Rack” appeared in
the round floating in deepest space, finally carrying its long sought empty
wine bottle.
I unveiled this
work accompanied by twenty-one other pieces, ten of which contained elements I
had gathered over the years. These were completed during the six months it took
to create the main piece. In the manner of a reverse potlatch the other 11
artworks, gifts I had made for family and friends, were returned for this
occasion. Borrowing from Duchamp, I said the accompanying works were “brothers
and sisters” reuniting to welcome their new “big brother.” It was only after
the unveiling that I realized in placing the freshly washed bottle on its rack
I had actually marked the END of my journey! For better or worse after 33 years
I had arrived on some other creative shore. I hoped to establish a sure footing
and I knew the adjustment of my sea legs could take a while.
Before me lay only one loose thread. Twelve
days prior to my show Tony, the youngest brother of my dear friend Penny, unexpectedly
passed away. It was time to be of loving
service to her during the mourning
period. As usual the creative process
proved to be prescient. In late November I had invited Penny for a sneak
preview of the Bottle Rack illusion. On the wall of my workspace was an earlier
version. It was my third attempt to master the illusion, but its scale proved
to be off by an inch in all directions. I referred to it as the “little
brother” in relation to the larger version I was in the process of silver
pointing. When she admired it I offered
it to her as a souvenir of the creative process, and because it was naked in
its gesso state I titled it “Just the Bones.”
In early January I accompanied her to the
garage that held the odds and ends of her late brother’s life. On a worktable
was a scattering of his glass experiments including several spiraling spires,
each approximately five inches long and curved. As usual Tony’s handling of the
glass medium was attenuated to a point of breathlessness. He took what was by
nature already fragile and drew it almost to the breaking point. I took these delicate spires back to my
workroom. Mounting “Just the Bones” on a piece of plywood covered in a matte
black jersey, I then inserted a fragile spear of glass in place of the metal
rod. It looked like the final exhale of a soul as it leaves the body; the
upward thinning spiral of glass echoed the poet Yeats as a soul ”pernes in a
gyre.” I drove the completed piece back
to Penny’s home and we installed it in a large niche to the left of her
fireplace flanked by two of Tony’s experimental glass constructions as
sentinels. Quietly it sat at rest overlooking the first year she spent without
him.
The following
October, Penny sent an E-mail to the immediate family asking them to reserve time
on December 10th to observe a yahrzeit marking the first anniversary
of their brother’s passing. In Judaism,
the first yahrzeit traditionally delineates the yearlong formal mourning period
with an unveiling of a memorial stone. This moment essentially says…”Enough”
and the family can return to its normal flow of life. As Tony was
untraditionally cremated, she had asked me to help create an alternative to the
traditional stone marker. By mid November I decided to use “Just the Bones” as
the memorial. I brought it back to my workroom.
At first I thought I’d formalize the work, replace the jersey with black
velvet and create an appropriate frame. The more I looked at it, after
comprehending the tradition of yahrzeit, I saw that a marker delineating time would
need a different approach.
Duchamp had taught
me a lot, including the fact that black is not the color of death. Black is
associated with the living, who are in mourning. The dead are like bones
bleached white; moreover the white symbolizes transparency. Instinctively I knew that a glass case was
perfect for Tony’s memorial. My design
required sandwiching “Just the Bones”
between a back sheet of tempered glass and an annealed interior glass panel
that could be drilled allowing the fragile spire to pierce that sheet as it
entered the construction, pressed between these panels. Like smoke raising I
lightly sandblasted on the front panel the title as a long stack of words:
“ Just the Bones Little Brother Just the Bones.” The final
result would be an illusion of “bones” floating in air. In bonding together all
seven pieces of glass forming the case I knew a set of registry marks would be
needed for precise alignment. I placed a large sheet of graph paper on my
worktable and laid the balsa construction on the grid. Taking a pencil I
quickly traced the interior voids and marked the extreme points in the upper
half. This drawing would go under the glass as the box was being assembled,
keeping all the elements in position.
After lifting the balsa piece off the
graph, I turned to hang it on the wall. I happened to glance over my shoulder.
There on the worktable was the unexpected! In place of a simple registration
was, without a doubt, the archetypal image of the ancient Goddess,
herself. My mind spun. While working on
a death piece, in being of loving service
to my dear friend, a true gift had appeared: SHE, the great manufacturer of
life, the parthenogenetic force, the ELOHIM! had entered my workroom.
Origin of the Image: SHE comes 4th
After
the memorial in December I had time to contemplate the image. Firstly, I had already
realized that an unseen Elohim-like understructure supported all of Duchamp’s
work. Now, SHE, a by-product of the
creative process, was in the process becoming an intentional portrait.
Moreover, the image was inherently true in several important aspects. To begin
with SHE was essentially not there, because I had traced the voids not the
“Bottle Rack.” SHE was a composite of the invisible. Because of the original
intent, which was to carry a wine bottle, the illusionary prong that would have
inhabited the upper rectangle had been removed, relieving that area of its
features. Classically the face of the Goddess was not to be witnessed. Indeed
the rectangle serving as her head is blank. Her welcoming stance, arms upraised
and opened, is found throughout antiquity. Her hands curve slightly inward and
resemble the double serpents that served her.
The present day
caduceus, symbol of physicians, is a remnant of that
ancient world. Also her beehive shaped skirt is in perfect alliance with the
Goddess. The beehive, with its single queen and her drones, has always been
among her symbols. It was that metaphor wherein the singular feminine is served
by a group of men that I recognized her true identity as the ELOHIM.
This term is used throughout the old
testament as a name or aspect of YHWH.
EL is nominally the G_d, but EL_H produces the Goddess, while the IM
designates a mulitple masculine ending.
In our world, the manifested world, when a group of men is united by a
singular inspiration we have the makings of a cultural movement. Until quite
recently, in fact from antiquity up until the modern era, it was the muses who
were understood to regulate the arts and sciences.
In the modern era only Duchamp held to that
belief. Isn’t it odd that the man considered to be the father of conceptualism
was in fact held fast by a singular idea. I boldly italicize this word
to stress its rarity within the mind, which itself is an unending swamp of mere
thoughts. It’s funny how many of us confuse the ONE idea with the many
thoughts! In Duchamp’s case his singular masterpiece is “The Bride Stripped
Bare By Her Bachelors, Even,” commonly refered to as “The Large Glass.” According to Duchamp’s notes it is the tale
of an arbor type virgin Goddess, who possesses a “point of malice.” So be
forewarned. Putting together the fragmentary notes one gathers that she
journeys from virgin to Bride and finally inspires a group of nine men, her
“Celibataires.” Duchamp mentions that originally the group was composed of eight individuals, but in keeping with his notion of “three” Marcel finally included himself as a “Station Master” and the group became “89”. Duchamp clearly understood that the sacred and the profane were but two sides of a single coin, whose connecting edge was the wittily erotic. For example, he playfully tells us that the Bachelors are connected “by their point of sex.” It is more than interesting to notice, as you look at the registration tracing, you find there are within her form eight suspiciously appearing phallic prongs.
Empowering the
Image: SHE comes 4th
Dear Recipient, I
confess that I felt compelled to distribute her image in 3D. I immediately
created an anaglyphic drawing in red and green. I had twenty sets of red/green
cardboard spectacles from another project. Because of the drawing’s large
format, 18 x 24 inches, I had it transferred to a flash drive. Unhappy with
the standard printed 3D effect, I returned home and slipped the drive into its
USB port. I opened the image in Photoshop to see if I could fine-tune the color
intensities. No luck, they were locked in place. Experimenting, I hit the command key INVERT.
Everything changed: SHE entered her true realm.
Marcel Duchamp only
dealt in what he referred to as a superior aesthetic. In assessing the modern
era he reminds us that in earlier times “painting had other functions: it could
be religious, philosophical, moral” and then he added, “…our whole century is
completely retinal… It’s absolutely ridiculous. It has to change: it hasn’t
always been like this.” After years of study, I assure you that Duchamp would
not have made these statements unless within his own body of work we could find
all that he held dear. So, who is his
Bride? When I decoded the “tri-cipher” that accompanied “The Bride Stripped
Bare By Her Bachelors…” it exposed the idea that “, Even” (SHE) can, shall or must wheel and deal. Does
SHE combine aspects of the Greek goddesses Tyche and Nemesis, who spin the
wheel of fate that bestows fortune or rights iniquity? After Duchamp, we can
certainly be “stripped bare” of the narrow confines placed on art in the modern
world. Through Duchamp, art could once again reflect the totality of the human
condition and challenge us to a meaningful dialog.
Invoking The
Image: SHE comes 4th
The dictionary
defines the word “invoke” as a way to petition for help or support. It is also
to call forth. The result of invoking
the Elohim is to empower community. Ironically, as an individual, you can also
be empowered by community. As a lifelong student of art history, I see that under
the banner of community Western society flourished during the Middle Ages. The great
monasteries and hermitages kept language and literacy intact, as the Arts,
through the nameless guilds of Europe, flowered in the majesty and glory of the
Gothic Cathedrals. When I say nameless I mean as opposed to our modern sense of
self. One survived the medieval period
as Jack of York. Then journeyed into the
Renaissance and individuated by re-birth in a “baptism” of signature: Mr. John
C. York. With this renewed sense of value as an individual we have traveled up
until this very moment. In the West being an individual has been nourished as the end goal. This has led us to our
present dilemma. The goal is depleted, the very soil of individuation can no
longer sustain a valuable society, and the entirety of this situation was
clearly reflected in the world of Andy Warhol, who ironically produced at the
center of his own commune: Warhol’s Factory. His droll assessment: “In the
future everyone will have his or her fifteen minutes of fame,” summed it up. Art
history records the birth of modern personality through Giotto, when the gaze
in a mural figure looked at us and we felt seen. Centuries later the complexity
of personality reached its apogee with such masterpieces as “Las Meninas“ by
Velázquez
with its engagement of us as spectator placed directly in the path of that
which is being observed. Several more
centuries passed when the quest of identity was thrown a curve with the advent
of photography, which democratized the situation by leveling our search of self
into a simple matter of appearances. Finally
Warhol shows us our overblown sense of self worth when he exposed us with an
instant Polaroid image, which he blew up, traced, and then cosmetically smeared
with silkscreen inks. The great glow of personality, after achieving individual
value represented by signature, ends with Warhol’s feigned fawning over a
celebrity’s autograph.
We need to be
guided into a new world, where the achievement of becoming an individual is
celebrated as part of something larger. This wholeness must be greater then the sum of us, its parts. Like a new dawn, a true
synergy is coming, which the world has yet to see. So we need to look up and
petition the greater universal intelligence for guidance. My path through
Duchamp leads me to petition the true Elohim, realizing her feminine identity
can no longer be swept aside, for SHE champions fellowship and seeks
partnership with us. As the feminine aspect within the Deity, SHE has been
greatly suppressed and it is up to each of us to recognize our immediate need
for her presence in the world.
The Kabbalah, the practice of Jewish mysticism
recognizes that G_d has both masculine and feminine aspects. The very name of
YHWH contains a balancing of the divine dual nature. As within the word Elohim, it is the presence of the letter H
(hei) that designates the presence of
the feminine. At this moment we recognize the need to stress in YHWH, the second H, the 4th
letter that reflects continuity with her mother, represented by the first H in
the second position. It is the younger feminine aspect that will shed her light
into our world. At this moment I feel her presence in my life because her appearance within my tracing was transcendental. The writer Rabbi Harav Ginsburgh in his classic work The Hebrew Letter: Channels of Creative Consciousness examines the letter hei. Essentially the letter hei “expresses revelation of self in the act of giving one self to another.” Further he shares with us “… the secret of the letter hei, the gift itself is the relation and expression of self, drawing the receiver into the essence of the giver. It all centers on the gap, the empty space between the long horizontal above, which the rabbi explains as “the line to thought and … the unattached left foot to action.” He then talks about a gap between thoughts and deeds, which, as an artist, I’m all too aware. One is “Often…unable to realize his inner intentions. Other times he is surprised by unexpected success. In both cases he feels the hand of God directing his deeds. The gap is the experience of the Divine Nothing, the source of all Creation in deed: Something from Nothing. “ I realize the Rabbi is teaching about the general exchanges between two people: one receives, the other gives. In this particular case the gift is literally an icon. The gap is the essence of emptiness that draws me towards SHE, the mysterious, and enigmatic other, which sets my mind on fire.
Marcel
Duchamp explained part of what I’m simultaneously dealing with in the text of a
talk he gave titled “The Creative Act.” He describes “a subjective chain of
events…” an artist goes through “…from the intention to the realization.” He
says: “The result of this struggle is a difference between the intention and
its realization, a difference which the artist is not aware of.” He declares
that an artist for all intents and purposes is placed in a “mediumistic role.”
Duchamp says the artist is only half the
Creative Act. He supplies the ”… personal expression of art ‘à l’état brut,’ that is, still in a
raw state, which must be ‘refined’ as pure sugar from molasses, by the
spectator…The creative act takes another aspect when the spectator experiences
the phenomenon of transmutation; through the change from inert matter into a
work of art, an actual transubstantiation has taken place.”
I’m realizing, as
I prepare to send this image out into the world, that this time SHE is the
maker. I am simply her first
spectator. Her apparition is the great by-product.
What I made intentionally was a registration tracing. The next morning that
registration lay under sheets of glass, as they became Tony’s memorial. It is the recognition of the unintended, but
expressed, which will not let me go. I glanced over my shoulder three months
ago. Now SHE is driving, which is more than OK.
Surprisingly, after thirty- four years my inner gift is not depleted, in fact it seems to expand. With sure footing, a year after hanging my bottle on its rack, I find myself busy as I “refine” this image that SHE transmitted to me. SHE is now a combo pack composed of poster/flash drive, as well as a set of 3D glasses for your enjoyment, and this missive. SHE has been multiplied into her harmonic of 9.9999999 ad infinitum. Poetically, like a shotgun blast, I’m about to scatter 99 of these into my world. My dream is that many will make her their “pin-up” as well as plug her into USB ports and accept her as the world’s first screensavior. Some might even take a moment to read this message. If luck is with me in hitting my target, a handful will look and remember as I did when I glanced over my shoulder.
Smiling towards you,
John
John McNamara>mac2u22@hotmail.com
John
John McNamara>mac2u22@hotmail.com
