Revelation Revisited

Once again I find myself barreling through the aisles of Revelation, the last book of the Bible. I started this text drawing many millennia ago, in 2009. The yellowing of the letters at the top attests to the dates; they've faded to a golden ochre, while the letters I laid down yesterday gleam by comparison. In 2009 I got as far as chapter 15, became overwhelmed by it (who wouldn't? it's a tough read), and set it aside for 44 fortnights. The world didn't seem to be coming to an end in any hurry, so there was no pressing need to finish it up.

Until now. It's destined for a gallery show in March, and I'm in a positive fury to finish it up. There are 22 chapters, and I've just reached chapter 17, so there are many miles to go. I'm in my studio night and day, partying with the Antichrist, kvetching with Babylonian harlots, and bawling out ballads to rock the ages:

Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city,
because she made all nations drink
of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

A real hoot it is, and a little over the top, but what is the Book of Revelation, if not over the top? This is not the time to become a Minimalist; I can't feature going all Agnes Martin with this particular text. No, this is Neo-Rococo at its finest; a proliferation of loops and baubles, ornament and excess. It rattles me to work on it, and not just because of the impending deadline. Revelation is so in-your-face, so doom-and-gloom, that it jars the soul to enter its spell. It's like going to Times Square on a Saturday night: why would any reasonable New Yorker self-aggravate by willfully entering that abyss?

A year ago I was doing an installation of Revelation on the walls of Famous Accountants, a cool gallery in Brooklyn, and I swore that I'd eat locusts before I'd do that again. Little did I know. But hey, free will aside, I hate to leave a job unfinished, ya know? I mean, I put in a few months of solid work to get to chapter 15, and it'll take a couple more months to bring it on home, and then I'll be done with it. Allah forbid that I should do it a third time.

Speaking of Whom, I forgot to mention that I'm cutting the letters from the Koran. And floating in the center is an Islamic mandala, in which I include a beloved Muslim prayer, Ayat al-Kursi, or the Throne Verse. It's a beautiful prayer, moving in its simplicity, and all-encompassing in its expression of Allah as the everlasting and glorious Creator. The letters for this prayer are cut from the book of Revelation.

And with that, I'm off to the studio for another day of levity. Wishing you all a fabulous day and a pleasant Rapture.

***
For those of you who are interested, I write about the current piece HERE, and I blog about last year's installation of Revelation THERE.

Milk and Honey

Milk and Honey
Christian hymn; letters cut from the Bhagavad Gita
40" x 26.25"
2011
(detail shot on right)

This is my new favorite text drawing. It's the old Christian folk song "Michael Row the Boat Ashore", and I cut the individual letters from the Bhagavad Gita. It took me 53 hours to complete, much longer than I expected. The letters form the abstract shape of a boat.

I've always loved this song. It's about faith, long-suffering, and hope. My favorite line is:

River Jordan is deep and wide, halleluia;
Milk and honey on the other side, halleluia.

This "milk and honey" is the hope of humankind; that which we reach for when we suffer. The song is said to have originated with slaves who lived on plantations on the islands just off the coast of Georgia. They would row back and forth to the mainland, through choppy seas, and this song was sung to allay their fear of capsizing. It also served as a metaphor for their captivity, thus milk and honey was a symbol of the freedom that they longed for. But who knows? It's all speculation; all those who know of the song's origin are long gone, presumably dwelling in the land of milk and honey.

I created the piece by cutting the individual letters from the Bhagavad Gita, and as usual in my text drawings, I included a passage from the book from which I took the letters. The passage is from the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 10, and Krishna is teaching Arjuna about the origin of man's allotment:

All that makes man in his many natures: knowledge and power of understanding unclouded by error, truth, forbearance, calm of spirit, control of senses, happiness, sorrow, birth and destruction, what fears, what is fearless, what harms no creature, the mind unshaken, the heart contented, the will austere, the hand of the giver, fame and honor and infamy also: it is by me only that these are allotted.

Who can argue with him? And what's to be argued? The joys we carry, and the burdens we bear, are the vessels that carry us to the other side. The best we can do is hope for ourselves and for others that we arrive, preferably dry, in the land of abundance.

Earthquake, Agnus Dei, Earthquake

This is a relatively new text piece. It's called "Earthquake, Agnus Dei, Earthquake", and the size of the paper is 12" x 14". The square of type pictured above is more or less centered on the page, and is about 4" x 5". It goes like this:

On the bottom layer I created a chapter from the Koran called "The Earthquake" by cutting the letters from a Bible and gluing them to the paper. I then created "Agnus Dei", a Catholic prayer, by cutting the letters from the Koran and gluing them directly on top of the "Earthquake" letters. I then ended this spectacular feat by spelling out "The Earthquake" again, on top of "Agnus Dei", creating a sort of liturgical sandwich, minus the cheese.

Why did I do this? I liked the idea of stacking the sacred texts methodically and selectively. "The Earthquake", or "Az Zal-zala" (Surah 99), is a very short chapter of the Koran. It speaks of a day when all of man's deeds will be uncovered by a great earthquake, and the appropriate rewards and/or punishments will be meted out. "Agnus Dei", or "Lamb of God", is an equally fun and light-hearted verse. It goes like this:

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace.

Basically it's a blanket prayer for forgiveness; a formal request for the comprehensive pardon of sins already enjoyed, as well as those waiting in the wings. It's beautiful in a way, in that it acknowledges the frailty of man, the certainty of his imperfection, and the need for intervention by God. I'm touched by the sincerity of this prayer, as well as the humility. I'm sure it's been responsible for releasing a good number of Catholics from some serious karmic retribution. Weird how that works. Heck, they don't even have to say it; a priest recites it three times, genuflects, and that's that.

Would that the Muslims had it so easy. They have to work a little harder for repentance. But hey, it's all personal preference. Me, I like my forgiveness to come from within. Easier said than done, of course, but come it does, and that's what's really needed to be set free.

So, back to my piece. I like it. I've been experimenting more with text sandwiches. Problem is, you can't read what's underneath, but that doesn't bother me overmuch. We all know how the plot unfolds. The good guys go to heav'n, the bad ones to hell, and the rest of us are left to find peace within our own skin.

Agnes Martin and Jacques-Louis David

I've been slightly obsessed with paring down my text drawings; eliminating the baroque elements and going for an austere presentation of the text. I'm also interested in working much larger, which makes my new minimal approach rather convenient, since it would take roughly two millennia to finish a piece with my current style of working.

A great influence for this new approach is the work of Agnes Martin. I saw a show of her work at Pace Gallery a few months ago, and was taken by her paintings. I didn't internally combust or anything like that; I simply appreciated the spirit of her work, her expression of perfection. Clearly she found "It" in the simplicity of line and grid, in the same way that a mathematician finds "It" in numbers. She made no claims to perfection, which was wise. She considered herself a classicist, and I think that too was wise. She reproached those who called her a minimalist. Her work is classical in the traditional sense, in that it represents an ideal. It goes against nature, in the same way that the paintings of Jacques-Louis David go against nature (see above). Agnes Martin and David have that in common–they idealize nature and present it as improbably perfected. Completely unattainable, but for the odd moment on the canvas. I love this about them. They knew that perfection was inexpressible, but they gave it a shot anyway.

That said, I must qualify by adding that I'm only a Martinophile from afar. Like, from 10 feet away. From that distance, her paintings are sublime. From 5 feet, they rock. From 3 feet, they start to diminish in interest, and from 12 inches, they completely fall apart for me. The quality of her line doesn't evoke the sublime. It's just a dumb old line. If Ingres had drawn her lines, then maybe there'd be something for the janitor to clean up. But her lines? Nope. They don't do anything for me.

Ah, but what if those lines were made up of teeny tiny text?

The Moon

The Moon

excerpt from the Koran
letters cut from the Bible
(from a series of 16; each piece is 4" square)
2011

I think there's a point when healing just happens all on its own; you know, without anyone helping it along. It goes largely unnoticed, until one day you suddenly realize that the wound is gone ~ even the scar has faded. It's a wonderful moment. That large piece of baggage (or in some cases, that 14-foot U-Haul) that you've been dragging around for a lifetime is cut free. Rather, it was cut free, and you just now notice. Hey, where'd it go? Wait, am I really done with that?

I guess you were. When it becomes more difficult to hang onto something than it is to let 'er go, you're officially done with it. That's my new rule. If it takes effort to hold onto a grudge, and if you have to keep reminding yourself that you're angry with a person, then you probably ought to let go of the grievance – that is, if you can remember what it was.

O, and I have another, which I call the Five Minute Rule. You know how sometimes you're depressed or worried about something, then you get distracted by a phone call or something, and then when you're done you can't remember what you were worrying about? Yeah, well, it's pretty routine around here. It's totally annoying when you have nowhere to direct your angst. So my rule is that if I can't remember what I was worrying about within five minutes, I have to let it go. Even when I finally remember it, I'm not allowed to worry about it anymore, because it too easily slipped from my radar.

Lately I find myself just hideously happy. It's so off the charts that even I find it cloying, so I try to hide it from my friends. A joyful Madge may be more than they can take. I feign ennui and cop a solid meh, with the intention that they won't be exposed to my insufferable cheer. What happened?? Why on earth should I be this happy? Personal circumstances aside, there comes a point where the deep, primal conflicts are resolved and the tectonic plates in one's psyche have settled, thus affording a stellar view of the cosmos. Something like that. Best not to crunch the numbers and try to figure it out, as you run the risk of talking yourself out of it. It's enough to realize that, in spite of it being a pain in the ass, life is sufficiently good to warrant the hassle.

Job Complete

God's Response to Job
The Book of Job, Chapters 38-42
Letters cut from 'The Oedipus Cycle' by Sophocles
22 1/4" x 20 3/4"
2011
(Bottom image is a detail; letters for "bliss" cut from the Koran)

God's Response to Job

God's Response to Job:
Job, Chapters 38-42

Letters cut from The Oedipus Cycle by Sophocles
2011
(work in progress)

(detail) ----->

I've come to the conclusion that perfection is overrated. Way overrated. Like, not even worth shooting for. Perfection is actually pretty dull. I mean, think about it – what's more interesting, the summit or the ascent? All you get from the top is a killer view, and like everything else, it gets old. How long can you look at other mountain tops before you get bored? Maybe perfection is fun for a while, but the novelty wears off fast, and then it becomes banal. Fortunately, life is always dishing out bliss-busters, so it's never long before we're knocked off the peak.

I'm just finishing up this text piece (see above). It's highly imperfect. In truth, it's bugging me. It's called "God's Response to Job" (so far, anyway..haven't come up with a better name yet), and it's...well, it's God's response to Job. Specifically, it's the last four chapters of Job, in the Old Testament of the Bible, where Jehovah informs Job who's Who and what's What. It's completely beautiful and I highly recommend reading it. I cut the letters from "The Oedipus Cycle". Two tragic figures, the stories probably based on real men of enormous faith and integrity who fell from their personal summits, due to the inevitable ego entanglements that accompany fabulous success. This is all speculation, of course; not mine, but theologians and thinkers who have nothing better to do than to speculate on the fates of mythological men. But no matter, because whether or not these good men were real or fictional, they're excellent examples of humanity. Their respective losses are something that very few of us will ever experience, and yet we get a glimpse of what it means to be fallen, disgraced, blinded by ego, cursed by those who will eventually fall themselves, and finally, lifted from despair by the grace of God. This is what it means to be human: to experience the relentless rise and fall of the ego.

I'll finish this text piece soon. I think it's fine that I'm not 100% happy with it. This is a good piece to have doubts about. It's an excellent piece from which to disentangle my ego. It's the perfect piece to be imperfect.

oooooooooooo

You can read more about this text piece here.