Run & Paint

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Visions, revisions, momentum of a thing. . . .

Visions & Revisions.

Walked by a brick wall, an older building yawning in its form, a downtown alley of fractured concrete and bulging bricks where thick-iron braces mount whole levels of 1800's architecture. . . the slight curve of the walls, cement patches tearing into fissures, seams, the age self-evident and aesthetically charmed, the inevitable yield to gravity, and I was passing towards the Cape Fear river and the inky churn of her day's angst. Knots of vine dangled by thick wires while beneath the tangle of electric city and wild-growth nature, a buildup & breakdown of paint in the rough face of the deep red bricks, the wild calligraphy of shapes told an interesting story. Layers of texture, testimony, bird shit, faded mural ads for coca-cola and shaving cream, signage for long-departed hardware stores, tarred pipes piercing the walls, the gallery of scars that is Front Street. The notion of layering and delayering, deconstruction & reconstruction, work acted upon work with rebuilding and restripping, the way Life is. . . how history embeds itself in the visual. . . and this meditation became a reclaiming of my image-repertoire, became a rekindling of visual thought and work, the new tendrils & roots pushing tiny fingers into the earth and air and water, pushing energy into the cycle of creativity. What a friend calls the “Momentum”.

(Meanwhile Dvorak's string cycle “cypresses” and what a full-sound suite.)

Excavation, this is the word I revisit, that I find myself confronted with, again. The word & the idea, Excavation, even a canvas by de Kooning, has reentered my vocabulary. To unbury the Self from external exploits and submissions, the stripping of false layers, of excess, the onion layers of Being. To re-examine Identity, what constitutes the I of the moment.

1.25.11  Slagging out on the trails of poplar grove plantation. . . . rain & cold air worked against the run, but nothing like Sunday's 16 miler. Sunday's run was a fury of wild, clumsy labor with wind beating ears and face, traffic ripping mind back to thighs and knees, eroding all determination. . . . today's run felt fast, felt fluid with long strides and higher knees, red legs burning with the pleasure of the work, short trees beat percussive in large rain, the quick dodge of puddles and the fast lean into slopes, the trails unwind and whisper life into lungs, restful eyes, unstraining, easy. A mantra/ visualization presented itself during the run: a mindful passage where I enjoyed the earth propelling me, the earth of the trail pushing my kicks into easy mud-full scoops of sole, was a direct positive collaboration, the earth and my body, a reconnection, an understanding, a union. Reminiscent of a meditation from years ago: inhale, feel the pull of air come from the soles of your feet, from beneath your feet, sourced in the earth, the breath entering the body from soil and what is beneath the soil, feel the pull as the grounding part of breath, soul inhaling soul, then blow your deep-colored earth into the air as white vapor, as light, as void, quietude. The cleansing cycle of breath carried the run, naught left but the earth, the rain, the run.