Sunset at the Knoxville Museum of Art, the evening light reflecting on Richard Jolley's Cycle of Life. I was at the museum for a fund-raising event and the way the light reflected on the glass, particularly the light passing through the two pieces of the final stage, Contemplation, really stuck in my head that particular evening, seeming to draw attention to both inner and outer light, the balance, or lack of it that illuminates our humanity, needing both the interior and the exterior stimuli to feed our creativity and wholeness of self. As I enjoyed the evening, caught up in that externally extroverted sense of social hubbub, I was reminded of this inner light, and the way it sustains us, sometimes glowing from within, other times hidden.
The social season has begun again and the next two weeks will be filled with music and art, some literature, another play, as well as social interaction. I am reminded of how the external or the social also feeds our creativity, or at least, my own creativity -- reminded that as much as I need the interior, and feel stressed and drawn when time for necessary quiet is not available, the same can be said for the social aspect of life as well. I need both for balance, and wonder if perhaps the summer was, in itself, perhaps a bit too isolating, a bit too deeply mired in the internal slough of excess introspection.
Or perhaps this is simply the story I tell myself. It increasingly seems to me that as much as well need our stories, both personal and cultural, in order to find our own place in the world, those same stories also have a tendency to mask truth, which always requires communication and a meeting of perspectives. As soon as one claims some hold on truth, "my truth", one is already on a slippery slope.
And yet I continue to feel unsettled, both exuberant, this sense of buzz and excitement fed by the social milieu, while simultaneously feeling overwhelmed. Like Tikka when she wanders around in circles, pawing at the carpet or a chair cushion trying to make just the right spot to settle in comfortably, I feel like I've not yet found that comfortable place where the inner and he outer can meet.
Look at this photo above, of a painting by Karla Wozniak called Synchronous Fireflies in the Knoxville Museum. I was at the museum again yesterday for another event, and I took this photo with an entirely different narrative in mind from the one in which I find myself this morning. I love the exuberance of the painting, the sense of light, of motion and also lushness. It. reminds me of the giddy interaction of social setting, of surprise connections, of this dance of interconnectedness. And yet the lushness, and perhaps this is just the way I am looking at this painting this morning, also holds a hint of danger. It reminds me of how light and perception can change, and the way something that can seem lush, rich, and exuberant in one moment can be transformed in an instant, suddenly becoming dark, dangerous, and overwhelming.
I am reminded of when I first moved to New York state from Texas, of the way I was enamored of the tall trees and the lush sense of greenness, but how at certain times in my yard, in the flush of rain and humidity and summer heat, I would dream that I was being devoured by that very excessive growth. I still feel that way sometimes in Tennessee, although not particularly this summer with my flat brown yard, which bare as it is, also holds a comforting sense of promise. And yet there is still that sense of celebration combined with the fear, (is it fear?) of being overwhelmed, of going too far in one direction or the other. And I wonder if this very feeling is something shared by others, or if I am just being presumptuous, attempting to project my own mistruth onto the world. I wonder if I am obsessing over "my story" or if there is some connection there to something more human and universal.
The flash of the fireflies, the light of the painting reminds me of how social interaction sparks creativity and pulls me out of the overgrowth, the strangling vines and deep much of self-indulgent introspection.
Two other pictures, also viewed yesterday, reminded me of the opposite extreme, at least for me. The photo above if of a print made from the cancelled plate of an engraving by Lester George Hornby called London Bridge. The crosshatched marks are added to the plate to prevent further prints from being made and passed off as originals. But I also find it interesting in and of itself. The pattern of the crosshatching seems to me to add a sense of distance, and even disengagement from the view seen in the print, as if one is standing behind a window with heavy leaded panes looking at the world. For me, this is the danger of too much extroversion, too much social engagement without the requisite private interior time. I feel like a fly trapped in some sticky surface atop the glass, unable to fully become a part of the scene, present but disengaged.
Here is the official print. Notice how we are much more deeply drawn in here, much more a part of the scene. I look at this print and feel palpably drawn into this world, into the detail. This print engenders a sense of connection, as opposed to the sense of separation in the previous print. Perhaps this is what I am trying to articulate, the struggle to find the balance that is needed in order to live in this world, to function on a daily basis in a world that is basically imposed upon me both externally and by my own psyche, and the ability to look beyond that, to be neither mired in the mud or trapped on the surface, to create the life I want, a life that in the end requires that I look beyond myself and into the whole of the community, a communion, in a sense, with the world.
