Right now, for me personally, is a time of looking back. I'm cleaning out five decades of accumulated memories, emotions and identities.
I'm experiencing a dis-attached view of all of it, including the stuff inside. I'm just throwing out all the unnecessary stuff.
I'm discovering I have many things to atone for. And then I must just move-on with faith.
I have to atone even for the "good deeds" too. This is my practice. Mujo says "at-one-ment" "being at one with." This helps me throw away a lot of useless baggage, either guilt or pride. I'm one with it all.
I'm also chucking-out all the art that I've created that I'm not totally in love with.
As an artist it's so freeing to let go of old ideas and things I liked but didn't love. A reminder to keep developing the art until I see the core and can express the truth without effort. It is just beauty. Some of the ones I love are kind of ugly and some of the ones that are not-quite-there are very beautiful but not with my true eyes. I recognized that in very little of the room full of boxes of photos and contact sheets and old newspapers and magazines in which I was published. Very little of it really shined Jamie! or better yet Daikan! I've discovered that is why I make art. To find 'it' and be with 'it' and share 'it'. It's that beauty seen with true eyes and it shows the viewer their true eyes too. We all know it when art strikes us. Art is life.
I'm feeling amazingly liberated as I go through this process. I've been fantasizing about it for years as I searched for a matting tool or some piece of skiing equipment climbing over junk and rifling trough boxes. For years all my eras of life have been just carelessly strewn about all over the place. Maybe I had some respect for the photo negatives from art school in binders. I had them all lined up neatly on the shelf waiting to be opened up again. Probably going to throw most of that out too.
All my things have been secondary to my rush toward something. Now I see what a mistake it was.
Now all this is turning into a melted mess in my house and in my spirit. Old negatives and prize ribbons from art shows just getting ground into meal as it makes its way into garbage bags and out the door. Memories from childhood and teens years and onward well up and show me again my lessons.
Now, every time I look over at that small pile of photos left over, I get chills all over my body and I go and look at them with my true eyes and they weep. Weeping not just because of the beauty but also the realizations of this life and the death of so many identities and ideas of myself.
I'll wait to see what comes out of this chrysalis, it might be a monstrosity it might be something lighter.
Let the light shine through.