Sleepless nights, the 1900s, and dreams of the future
animated gif by SlaterAh, the early 1900s. Virginia Woolf marries art critics and starts work on her first novel. Simultaneously, post-impressionist art is only beginning to be exhibited. Today I went around with this era in mind, and asked the bookstore keeper to open up a bunch of hard cover book I knew I could not buy. I did treat myself to a graphic novel I have been looking at for a year entitled "Walking the Dog" by David Hughes. It is drawn in graphite and reminds me of my childhood spent reading Gary Larson and Gahan Wilson comics.
Here are some awesome people who were born in the 1900s.
1) Joseph Campbell , expert on comparative mythology and religion
2) Ayn Rand - One of the influential people who made we want to become a maker. Perhaps the only writer to have influenced me in this direction for all the others were makers as well or great painters and aritsts. The summer before college started I met Howard Roark. I never forgot him since.
3) Jean Paul Sartre
4) Simone de Beauvoir - girl power.
5) Claude Lévi-Strauss
One of my favorite subjects in anthropology class. Lévi-Strauss recognized the colonial, paternalistic attitude of early researchers in anthropology. (from old notes not my own words) He believed that there are dualities hard wired into all human beings. I believe this.
The list goes on. Which brings me to my real purpose for taking up your precious computer space. I want to share something I wrote today in a coffee shop. It is what has been in my head and in myself for a long time now I think. So in the spirit of the 1900s -here it is:
In the physical world that I live in man can be differentiated, separated and categorized based on his or her physical attributes. In our modern lives we are forced to strongly associate our identities to our physical appearance, our race, gender or the mere appearance of it.
Not just individuals but whole nations are sometimes categorized by the prosperity of fanciful things and attributes that we are able to acquire. Whether, consciously, or unconsciously- we judge others based on these things as well. In our age where an abundance of materialistic values run patterns of thought it is important to seek a unification or awareness of a collective consciousness if we are to be able to evolve or progress. One can argue that the acquisition of material things is but a mere quest for beauty, and for design- but what of third world countries? What becomes of the people who cannot afford the luxury of fanciful things or at the very least, a decent education?
I can only say that I have been blessed in my life by a force beyond my understanding, that I am able to write these words on this day considering the circumstances of a large population of the people in my country. I know that this is the same for other places in the world as well. There are only quite a handful of people who are given the privilege of sharing their voice and opinions in ways that can reach out to a bigger portion of the world. I am one of these fortunate people. However, I do not claim to know the answers, or possess the magical solutions that will save people from poverty. I only know that I am a regular person who wants to try to do what is good in the ways I know how.
I am a visual artist, a glass sculptor and a constant learner. I am human and often ponder on thoughts of the spiritual nature. Man has contemplated on the nature of the human soul since the Paleolithic times but my personal favorite period is the Renaissance. In 1955, a Jesuit paleontologist named Pierre Tielhard de Chardin contemplated on the nature of man and the nature of the Within. The Within speaks of human consciousness and its relation to all forms of life in the universe. He said that a developed human being has achieved some degree of conscious integration- an integration of the self with the outer world and nature.
I believe that the attainment of the awareness of this inner structure of mankind, and an awareness of the unified life source is an essential aspect towards an increased intensity of the system of human thought and an essential element towards our evolutionary future, not just as humans, but with the whole spectrum of life in mind. An awareness of this life source, may keep us in touch with other life forms, whether they be microscopic such as a particular species of plankton that may hold the cure to a deadly disease, or macroscopic, such as an entire rainforest full of organisms.
Buddhist thought also speaks of the vast natures of the human mind, and our inherent attunement with nature and the unified life force. What I write about is nothing new. The unification of man is an essential field worth contemplating if we are to rise above the emptiness of our fast paced and materialistic modern lives. Shining the light of possibility of attaining a higher and more unified field of consciousness can yield to unimaginable evolutionary possibilities and also improve the health of our inner structure and collective well being. As an artist I believe that shining a light on these very abstract concepts and creating and reproducing them in the physical world can lead to a manifestation of the feelings of unification without having to use words. I have often felt a deep understanding of the world in front of great works of art, and, unlike the slow digestion of a wonderfully written piece of literature, the effect of a masterpiece happens all in one instant.
I could not sleep for four days, because I started to see snippets of the piece I want to create in my head. I want it to be kinetic, and involve scent as well. I believe that moving art is the future, and art that communicates in different ways even beyond the visual. I left the city and went to a beautiful island where I experienced nature first hand, and on this island I found a sense of calm, for I felt that I found my life’s purpose. There are so many projects I want to create, but, as I finally take the step towards higher education, I know that I am finally ready to devote two years of my life to a project of grand proportion. I would like to involve my rich cultural heritage as a Filipina, from the stories of my grandmother, to the mundane moments in my life until this day. I am inspired by small things, the smell of the flowers by the graves of my ancestors, I am inspired by the hoards of people on the street, by the stories each one may possess. I feel a strong connection to them all in times when my mind is calm and collected. I would like to render this mostly in glass, through the art of glass flame and cold working. I would like to include my experiments with light and lens, as well as my fascination for the distillation of scents and creating perfumes as a medium of fine art. I would even like to experiment with animation in the spirt of some of my idols, Rene Laloux, David Lynch and Hayao Miyazaki.
I am aware that my assumptions and theories are only applicable to a certain demographic, and that in far off, unexplored parts of this world, there are people who live life differently. I can only hope I am brave enough one day to explore these uncharted regions, but for now, I have only my thoughts and my studio.