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i started this piece in january 2008, during the culmination of a series of personal disasters ...
partly as a diversion from tumultuous events, and also a source of meditative focus to help bring meaning and direction to circumstances ...
the act of painting has always led me through the ‘dark wood’ of my life, probably because i spend most of my time in prayer and meditation throughout the process - usually many hours a day - every day ...
in this piece, i was desperately looking for answers like few times before in my life and career - aesthetics were the least of my concerns - the painting simply becomes a medium through which other information is delivered or sustained - there is no right, wrong, pretty, ugly, or pertinent - it simply is ...
i always imbue the surfaces of my paintings with textures, marks, notations, etc., as a way of establishing its spirit or identity - but here i was working with more automatism than usual - receptive to what the painting would deliver rather than what i would bring to it - the early layers resulted in a cacophony of seemingly indecipherable data ...
in retrospect, i now see it as a purge or mescaline field of symbols, textures, and patterns - a field of apparent meaninglessness or culmination of encoded experience - who knows how the mind works - at least a touchstone for other inquiry ... the ensuing developments read like an excerpt from borges’ encounter with the ‘aleph’ - simultaneity contextualized ...
the first clear thought to repeatedly arise from all this was: “nothing says ‘fact’ like something written in blood” - so what is the fact, what are the facts, and with what facts do i concern myself - and ‘what’s blood got to do with it’ ...
from that point - two ‘sets’ of letters became distinctly obvious; one was that of a mantra i received in 1970 as part of my initiation to the practice of transcendental meditation - a word never written or spoken aloud - the other was a series of letters that seemed to be a word - at least phonetically recognizable and familiar in sound to words i heard my lithuanian grandmother speak - ‘iepov’ ...
closer examination revealed the origin from ancient greece to mean ‘temple’, ‘holy ground’, or ‘a place where God dwells’ ...
while randomly emphasizing combinations of letters the word ‘fatima’ began to emerge, spawning research in other areas; ideas of apparitions, sun-dogs, miracles, coincidence, prayer, meditation, devotion, mysteries, the aleph, etc.
the experience of this painting became a journey from ‘dark wood to white rose’ as dante suggests; through ideas, images, memories, conflicts, turmoil, and acceptance of a different order and understanding of realties - and humbling, in its’ clear recognition of what is - followed by a sincere attempt to achieve it ...
almost two years since it began, i still adjust a line or recognize something previously overlooked or misunderstood ... and i still don’t understand the maps and blueprints or lines they suggest ...
‘the last painting’, like few that preceded it and others that followed, has me engaged in a dialogue i’m more interested in continuing than controlling ...
it’s a journey - odyssey or exile - time will tell ...
