A Castle for the Royal Couple

Castle: 'Interior Castle' by Saint Teresa
Letters cut from 'Mysterium Coniunctionis'
by Carl Jung. 14" x 10.5", 2010

How 'bout that royal wedding, huh? Have you recovered from the riveting event? I'll bet there wasn't a wet eye in the house. Me, I was royally apathetic about the whole thing, but NPR insisted on covering it, blow by bloody blow, so I had no choice but to listen in. (God forbid I should turn off NPR). Well, I wish them all the best, and may their holy matrimony be cosmically and preternaturally blessed from here to kingdom come.

Back here on Planet Madge, I got my own stuff goin' on. For those of you who won't be spending the weekend with the royal couple, I'm in a show tomorrow (Saturday, April 30) at ACA Gallery in Chelsea. It's at 529 West 20th St., 5th floor, and the opening is from 2-5:00. I sent invitations to all my friends, and then followed it with an email insisting that they don't come. They've all seen my work, it's going to be a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and I don't want anyone to trouble themselves. So far it looks like I've been persuasive - no friends coming. Crap. Maybe I'll bring a book.

Anyway, if you're in the area, please please PLEEEEEASE stop by! It's my first time showing in Chelsea and I'm a wee bit nervous. O, I forgot to mention what the show is. It's called "Fragments: Modern and Contemporary Collage", and there are some pretty awesome artists in the show: Joseph Cornell, Judy Chicago, Romare Bearden, Jim Dine, Tony Fitzpatrick, Red Grooms, Grace Hartigan, Louise Nevelson, Andy Warhol, Max Weber....yeah, so now you see why I'm a little nervous. I'm honored to have been asked to show with such amazing artists. I'll be showing the piece above, which I just found out has sold (yay!) as well as two other pieces.

Actually, I'm a little sad that it sold. I really love this piece. It took me an ungodly number of hours to do it, and I cried the whole time because I'd just gotten royally dumped by a guy. There's a fair amount of tears and snot mixed in with the glue. Maybe I won't tell the collector that, and maybe it's just as well that I send it on its merry way. Onward. But it's difficult to part with a chunk of my heart...anyone who's an artist knows exactly what I'm talking about. Selling art is like selling your children: you gotta get a decent price. But I'm thrilled that someone would fork over the cash to have it on their wall, so it's fine. It's fine. I'll be fine.

Blessings to one and all, and an effervescent toast to the happy couple. May your hearts be open and your castles full.

Song of the Everfree

I'm not sure how or when this happened, but I just noticed that a lot more people are following my blog. Jeez, what's up with that? Something in the water maybe? Thanks everyone! And a heartfelt welcome to my blog. I write when I can, and sometimes when I can't. It's become part of my creative process–a way to sort out my thinking, as well as to explain my work to anyone who's interested. And I like to write, and I'm never short on opinions, and so forth, and so on.

Briefly, my creative work goes like this: I cut up sacred texts letter by letter, disemboweling the word of God, and then reconfigure them letter by letter to create another sacred text. An example is the piece above: I created the first chapter of the "Avadhuta Gita" by Dattatreya (also called "The Song of the Everfree") by cutting the letters from "The Joyful Path of Good Fortune", a Buddhist text by the enlightened master Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. In other words, I've sacrificed a sacred Buddhist text to create a sacred Hindu text. Hey, it was one or 'tother. But not to worry - sooner or later I'm bound to cut up a Koran or something else to create a passage from "The Joyful Path". Yo, it's all good. I'm an equal opportunity disemboweler, and I do it all with respect, just so you know. Not that anyone has accused me of the contrary, but I'm just sayin'.

So anyway, the Avadhuta Gita is a seminal piece of sacred writing that lays out the principles of Advaita Vedanta. No light piece of writing, this. The ancients actually called it Extreme Advaita, which sounds very contemporary and action-packed. (I'd have preferred Gnarly Advaita, but the translators didn't consult with me). The point is that Dattatreya really puts it out there: He states that we live in a fog and must shake off the illusion of duality in order to have the experience of Oneness. (Advaita means literally "not two").

I'm not keen on categorizations, especially when I'm the one being categorized, thus I avoid all religious affiliations. But if someone held a water gun to my nostril and forced me to label myself, I'd grudgingly call myself an Advaitan. That's about the closest I'll come to admitting any belief system. And, after all, Advaita Vedanta is more of an experience than a belief. The belief in a formless, indivisible, immutable Supreme Consciousness that pervades all of existence is totally whacked out. You'd have to be a full-on nutter to believe something so bizarre, without any reference point to back it up. It's the experience of this Consciousness, or state of being, that's the convincing part. And of course that experience is interpreted in many ways, and called names that we're all familiar with:

God

Allah
Atman
Y-hw-h
Shekinah
Holy Ghost
Brahman
Shakti
Elv-s

...and so on. You get my point. We all got our labels. But Advaita is the closest tradition I've found to being label-free. It's all about knowledge through experience, leading to realization. Realization of what? Realization that you're It, baby. You are one of those things listed above. Doesn't matter which one you pick; you're It. Another way of putting it:

You are that which you seek.

Here–read this passage from the Avadhuta Gita if you don't believe me:

The quintessence of the whole Vedanta is the knowledge and the realization of the Atman. By nature I am that formless, all-pervading Atman.

See, what I love about Advaita is that you can retain your belief system, whatever it may be, and still be an Advaitan. There's Christian Advaita, which you can read about here if you're inclined. It's pretty fascinating. Here's another quote from the same chapter:

The Atman exists always, everywhere, and in everything. It is eternal and unchanging. Everything in this world is void, and again, it is filled with the Atman. Realize: I am that Atman.

The piece above, like all my work, is comprised of a single line of type, without spaces or punctuation. It starts and stops at the same point on the page, and creates a leaf-like structure, framed and supported by itself. The line is void of distinction, identical from start to finish, conceptually without beginning, middle, or end. To quote the Gita one more time:

Truly, all this is Brahman.

* * * * *

For those in the NYC area, I'll be in a show this weekend in Chelsea. It's at ACA Gallery, 529 West 20th St, New York. The opening is from 2-5:00. Read about it here if you'd like, and please come! I'll be showing with some amazing artists, some dead and some still living.

* * * * *

Above: The Song of the Everfree: The Avadhuta Gita from The Joyful Path of Good Fortune. 22" x 19", 2011.

Ai Weiwei and Salman Rushdie

The weekend. Saturdays are my sacred day in the studio. I live for Saturdays, and am very possessive of them. If I have to go out on a Saturday night I get cranky, since it cuts into my studio day. So all week I've been [practicing] turning down offers for dates, in order to keep my coveted day intact. Success! No date tonight. (It's never been a problem, actually, but sooner or later I may have to turn someone down, and I want to be prepared).

I'm working on a semi-large piece that I'm pretty excited about. I'm cutting up 'The Satanic Verses' by Salman Rushdie, and turning it into a chapter from the Koran called 'Repentance'. For those of you who aren't familiar with my creative process, I cut up sacred texts letter by letter and reconfigure the letters to create other sacred texts. In this case, the novel I'm cutting up – 'The Satanic Verses' – is admittedly not sacred, at least not in the sense of being a world religion. I take these liberties from time to time. But it's a reknowned piece of literature nonetheless, and notable for the controversy surrounding it. 'Verses' was published in 1988 and was immediately interpreted by radical Muslims as an insult to Allah. There are indeed blasphemous passages, and enough cynicism to fry an egg (apparently the Ayatollah wasn't keen on irony), so the novel was banished and an attempt was made to fry Mr. Rushdie's ass. Incongruously, the fatwah is still out on him, and he's been forced to live his life in exile in the U.S.

The novel isn't so spectacular. I've never been a big fan of magical realism, and the story has too many magical sub-plots for this reader. I mean, c'mon buddy...pick a lane. I can't keep up with all your fancies, and your lavish literary references are like ping pong balls bouncing around the inside my skull. My lofty opinion is that Mr. Rushdie should-ought to tighten the plot for his pea-brained readers with short attention spans. A weekend writing seminar with Danielle Steel should do the trick and maybe even render his novels readable. Now there's a gal who can write! No PhD needed to decipher her plots. But hey, whaddoo I know, huh? It's not as though one has to pass a literary exam, or even an English test, to write an art blog.

But anyway, all that is beside the point. I wanted to address the fact that his writing was banished, and it actually got him banished from his country. What a concept! Can you imagine creating something from your heart, and then having your life in jeopardy as a result? O gracious! It makes me weak with wonder. The artist, she should be able to say what she wants. The artist Ai Weiwei has been arrested because his art is critical of the Chinese government. This is insanity. As if the Chinese government is beyond reproach! They govern with egregious self-interest, and imprison those who stand in their way. When the people who set the rules are allowed to severely punish those who don't obey, there's bound to be corruption. Religion is ripe soil for this scenario, since it claim to hold the key to the afterlife. Throughout history there have been countless innocents and truth-tellers who have suffered at the hands of the arrogant power mongers.

My text piece addresses all of this: Namely, the creative person who states the truth and who pays a tragic price for it. But I leave some wiggle room for ambiguity. The question is one of intention. Am I further insulting Islam by cutting up the writings of an infidel and recreating a passage from the Koran? Or am I bringing restitution to the original offense, and making holy something that is considered blasphemous? (Please note my choice of chapter from the Koran: 'Repentance').

Anyone who's familiar with my work knows that I have deep regard for all religions, and respect anyone's spiritual path. I even respect the person with no spiritual path, and one who, like me, follows the pathless path. So I trust that my intentions for this piece are understood to be respectful of Muslims. Restitution is what I have in mind and heart as I work on this piece. Of course I have no affiliation with Rushdie and cannot know what he would say, nor if he'd approve of my efforts. (I suspect that he would not). This is my own expression of repentance, restitution, and reparation. I seek only to create something beautiful where there has been conflict. Surely it won't change anything, but even small transformations can be felt...sometimes...maybe...who knows. But I live in a free country, so no one can arrest me for what I say or make. God bless America, huh? We're a messed up nation, but at least we got one thing right.

Off Da Chain

I read a lot of religious texts, and then later pick and choose which ones to use in my creative work. You'd be amazed at how many are out there. It's kind of amazing, actually. God, or Consciousness, or whatever is responsible for existence, seems to have revealed Itself innumerable times, in countless ways. I don't trouble myself with determining which writings are from God and which are counterfeits; I take the lazy path and assume that if someone goes to all the trouble of writing an exhaustive tome and publishing the dang thing, and if it has even an inkling of authority, then far's I'm concerned it's sacred.* But I'm also of the opinion that everything is sacred, which is a convenient segue to the subject of this blog post.

The text that I'm currently reading is called 'The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects'. It's a dog-eared, yellowed copy that I found in a bookstore in the East Village, and has been sitting patiently on my shelf for over a year. Pretty dense stuff. It's not what one would call action packed, and I seriously doubt that anyone is in a bidding war for the film rights. But if you're like me and like to self-flagellate from time to time, I highly recommend it.

It contains a metaphor that resonated with me in a big way. With your permission, and even without, I'm going to paraphrase. It goes something like this:

You are chained around the neck to a post. Your chain is made of gold, and you see everything as "good". There is a person next to you who is chained to the same post, but her chain is made of iron, and she sees everything as "bad". You're both aware that your respective chains have bound you all your life, but are helpless to break them. You know that if she would just stop seeing everything as "bad", and start seeing it as "good", she'd be released from her chain. And she knows that if you would stop seeing everything as "good", and start seeing it through her more realistic eyes, you would likewise be released. The only freedom, then, is when we rise above the chains of "good" and "bad", and understand that they only serve to restrict us. True freedom comes when we realize that everything is sacred.

Including the chain.

[brief pause to accommodate your astonishment and let it all sink in]

I'm looking forward to using this passage in one of my text pieces. I haven't yet figured out what other religious text I'll be slicing up to create it. There needs to be some parallel, either by similarity or distinction, and this perspective on good and evil is quite unusual. Most religions are not keen on sanctifying "evil". That's the devil's domain, and thus is not to be confused with God's will. Hey, I get it. It's confusing stuff. A pastor's congregation would empty fast if she started preaching that all events are ordained by God. It doesn't take a genius to see how much pain this would cause to a family who's grieving.

We uphold the distinction of "good" and "evil" by social necessity, to comfort those in distress as well as to punish those who caused it. If there were no consequences for selfish behavior, we'd really be in a fix. There must be separate categories for "good" and "bad" in order for us to function as a society with reasonable efficiency. And then we go and drive the point home by creating categories within categories; we can't just have "good", we also have to have "better", and then "best". And thus we invent award ceremonies and lifetime achievement awards, for those who need to see "good" improved upon. It's all relative, and indeed sometimes "bad" is better than "good".

But individually, as reasonable adults, we have to consent that the notions of "good" and "not-so-good" are arbitrary. What makes you feel really good may in fact be causing wretched pain to someone else. If you knew that your current distress was going to be the catalyst for major change and ultimately place you in a position to experience unbridled bliss, would you still label it "bad"? Heck no! You'd be all over it, telling everyone how "good" life is.

So as a society, sure, we have to go with the paradigm of good and evil. Societies aren't too keen on ambiguity, thus we create such institutions as the Republican party and the Evangelical Fundamentalists, who embrace and foster the simplistic notions of black and white. O, but how simple life would be if the "bad" guys wore black! We'd no longer have to think, we'd just pull the trigger! And President Palin would be our fearless leader, and we'd be forever rid of all those nasty gray areas in life. Hallelujah, pie-ple!

But individually, we know that it's all a crock. God, or Consciousness, is beyond any childish notions of permanence. Anyone who claims to know the will of Consciousness is still in chains. In this unimaginably complex universe in which we find ourselves, the mystery prevails, untouched by the presumptions of the learned. Verily I say unto you, there is no good, there is no evil, and folks, there ain't no chain.

* But just because it's sacred doesn't mean it's true. Truth is relative, and sometimes "truth" is just plain false. I don't assume that a person's purported revelation came from God, but I don't assume that it didn't, either. I only assume that it's sacred. And so on.

Muammar and The Madge

I've always been an avid reader, and am reasonably familiar with the English language. There aren't many adjectives with which I'm not on a first name basis, so it was with some consternation that I read the following sentence in a review in "Art in America" last November:

"To make her small-scale collages on paper, Meg Hitchcock slices up diverse source texts ranging from the Old Testament to Darwin and glues the individual letters into mandala-like compositions, to near phantasmagorical effect."

Say whaat?? Now, art critics can write some pretty impenetrable stuff, but yo homey, you can't just invent words to describe my work. Why not supercalifrajilistical? Well, turns out that it really is a word. "A bizarre combination of constantly changing optical effects"? Jeez. Makes me wonder if the critic didn't like my work. Or maybe she was referring the Urban Dictionary definition: "Completely and utterly awesome to the point that if you were any more awesome you would internally combust."

Imagine my shock, then, to find the same obtuse word used in the recent "New Yorker" to describe Muammar Qaddafi. Check it out:

"Last month, Muammar Qaddafi, who combines a phantasmagorical sense of reality with an unbounded capacity for terror, appeared on television to say that the rebels were nothing more than Al Qaeda extremists..."

Call me a nutter, but I believe these things fall into alignment for a reason. Jung calls it synchronicity. When events parallel each other or occur simultaneously, he says you need to pay attention because something important is coming down the pike. Okay, so what'm I to make of this phantasmic alignment? Am I to sharpen my cooking knives and head for Libya? I'd undoubtedly be better armed than most of the rebels already there. Are Muammar and I destined for holy matrimony? I'm not so sure that his other wives will be agreeable with having to accommodate a middle-aged artist who cuts up Korans for fun. Or maybe Qaddafi is to be a future collector of my art? Hey, I could sure use a wealthy patron, and just because the guy is evil incarnate doesn't mean that he doesn't have a taste for the phantasmagoric.

Keep in mind that I've only come across this word twice in my life. Coincidence? Karma? Or just plain krap? The thing about coincidence is that it's often mislabeled due to lack of information. Like, today as I was waiting in line at my bank, I noticed, as I do every time I'm there, that all the tellers were wearing green. A dullard might consider this to be an astonishing coincidence. I, being alert and ever the cynic, am comfortable in assuming that green is the required attire, and furthermore that the average teller tires of it quickly. I'd even go so far as to guess that it was the brainchild of some dolt in mid-management who thought that we, the worthy but less educated customers, would be more inclined to deposit our cash in an institution so steeped in green that their employees voluntarily clad themselves in it each morning. I also note that there are green lollipops on the counter, a subtle reminder that poverty sucks. I suspect that if mid-management had their way, the tellers would be required to suck them while providing us with excellent service, but the prohibitive cost of dental insurance intervened and thus sucking is optional. But anyway, surely you'll agree that in this situation, it wasn't coincidence that governed the choice of attire.

There are those occasions, however, when coincidence is a dubious explanation for parallel events. Like, if I started wearing green shirts and sucking green lollies, and within 24 hours I won the state lottery, I would be willing to embrace the possibility that greater forces are at work in the universe, and that God in all His mysteriousness had chosen to bestow prosperity upon all believers through the unlikely agent of the TD Bank marketing team. I may be a cynic, but I can be as open-minded as the next guy as long as there's plenty of cash involved.

But back to me and Muammar. There's a good chance that all this was pure coincidence, and that we're not destined to meet up in the future. I'm actually fine with that. He's not really my type, and he sorta creeps me out, in a phantasmagoricalistic-ass kind of way. But I'm concerned for him, because it looks like he's going to be out of a job real soon, and I'm afraid that with his advanced years and limited set of skills, he might have trouble finding another job. I think I'll drop him an application for TD Bank, as they're kind to seniors, and it's the least I can do for someone so darn phantasmarrific.

Above: There's my guy, wearin' the green. He's got the right idea, but maybe I'll suggest that he tone it down a little when he goes for his job interview. And try to smile, for gadsake.