The Infinite Source of Art

In “Light on adobe’s Walls,” Willa Cater says, “Every artist knows that there is no “freedom” in art. The first thing an artist does when starting a new work is to impose barriers and restrictions; it decides on a particular composition, a specific key, a specific respect for creatures or objects in between. Next, I would say that setting restrictions is not only the first thing an artist does, but everything he does. The process of limiting infinite possibilities Like the God of Genesis, the artist imposes forms on the void, he says, “Let there be light,” then he sets the boundaries between light and darkness, between the waters above and below, between heaven and earth, between plant and animal, between man and woman.

First, the artist chooses the environment. Each environment has its limitations. That’s how plastic surgeons don’t make sounds. They are limited by optical expression. They work with shades of color and spatial shapes. Again, music art cannot be touched physically, like a patchwork quilt or a statue. Again, it would be difficult for a director who deals with music, visual performances, acting and writing to portray Joyce’s dream “Finnegan’s Remembrance”. Before choosing a medium, the artist is faced with many limitless possibilities of expression. Choosing a medium imposes certain limitations on what it can and cannot do.

The artist then discovers that elements of each environment can be endlessly combined. When I sit on a guitar, I encounter an infinite variety of possible notes and rhythms. Every time I choose a note or a rhythm, I say no to the other. I usually prefer to limit myself to the 12-note scale of the standard European chromatic scale. Even this limit gives me more options than I know what to do, so I usually choose a scale that limits 12 notes on which I’m going to focus. I often choose the 8th scale and the key that has proved successful for manufacturing, such as A Hungarian minor, C-Phrygian or E-Lydian dominant. This limit implies many other limitations, as each key and gamma have its own atmosphere. Even these scales surprise me with the endless possibilities of grouping notes into chords and ordering the order in which the notes appear.

But then again, I’m not sure that Cater is quite right when he says that creating obstacles and restrictions is always the first thing an artist does. When I write poetry, the first thing that usually happens is a flash of intuition about a feeling or object. It can be a simple metaphor or even a feeling that an object creates art. At this point, I haven’t even limited the expression of intuition to any particular medium. Of course, intuition itself can be a kind of limitation – it definitely creates one association and no other, and it can be what Katter called a ‘certain attitude… objects to each other ‘, but ‘The wind blows where it wants and you hear its sound but do not know where it comes from and where it goes. “I don’t know where these intuitions come from, and I don’t know if they are an endless limitation and barrier. It’s a kind of vague potential with subtle limits that looks more like a space for exploration than an obstacle.

I usually prefer to express these intuitions in verse. This middle choice has limits, but it should not be followed by rhyme schemes or chips. Sometimes the next thing I do is loosely associate the words on the page, trying to catch some of the pixie dust of the original intuition. My only limitation is to associate as many feelings and thoughts as possible with intuition. This storm of words will be the material on which I impose rhymes and chips.

Words are usually pronounced quickly and violently, but I still can’t catch all the elements of intuition. They fall back into the infinity from which they were born. The process of turning intuition into a set of words is a process of setting boundaries and barriers to intuition, but I doubt that the artist used limitations and barriers to intuitively understand the cause of these lost things. It seems that intuition has the character of infinity. I understand that infinity is not infinity, because it is a limited part of infinity, but I try to express that the artist does not necessarily get this intuition from the beginning, setting boundaries and barriers.

I don’t know if he consciously chooses this step, and this step is often only a matter of the moment, but it needs to be taken to locate a part of the infinite that can become boundaries and imposed barriers. Choosing a part is the first limit and barrier imposed by the artist, but this is the second step he crosses.

I conclude this post with a short poem. The first suspicion came when I was walking home from work one day. I didn’t have paper, so the image and the word “storm” formed in my mind. When I got to the notebook, I poured it on paper in a matter of seconds. I put very little structure into it, except for the first few words and some minor changes.

I see God
And the hunger of the living dead is growing in me.
I’m going to rip his head off.
And eat his brain.
It’s sweet and satisfying
Like no other brain for this.
I see that I ate Athena,
But I’m not a cannibal.
I think she liked it.
And I, now lively,
Look at fruit
It’s going to come out of my temple.
After the flow ahead.