On to Something

She had visited earlier in the gallery and had spent a lot of time with my works, I noticed. I did not know who she was. It was during one of my solos. I introduced myself and we started to talk. She said, “Looking at your latest, I think you are onto something substantial here.” Obviously she was familiar with my earlier works. I felt assured about my own assumptions as my work was taking a new turn. But'onto something,' needed more clarification and that did not happen. Then she added,

“At first I was not into your new turn, now when I look at it again, it grows on me. Now I am liking it. Rather, I love it very much.”

“Great! But why?” I said.

“I cannot put my finger on it and say exactly why, right now," she said.

Later when she was gone, I was left with my own devices to figure out, what she had meant.

It is difficult to look at my own work imagining that it had been done by someone else. That may take some higher level of mental training in detachment. When I look at my work, the final product is not what I see. I have vivid memories of the whole process. So the moment I see my completed work, everything I have gone through flashes in my mind and it is hard for me to separate myself from it. It may be possible after a long period of time; years, I would say. A work is a time capsule or documentation of each moment of my thoughts and feelings I went thorugh, during the process. An artist, sometimes is like a cartographer who does some sort of a 'time lapse mapping'. So seeing my work has a totally different meaning to me than to others.

But the'onto something' factor is very important . There may be a moment I had hit that particular musical 'note'. That has to be the base 'note' for my next ensemble of works. It is not a high note or a lower one. Hitting that 'unique' note happens when a letting go moment comes naturally, after a long period of hard work during which ones forgets about all the earlier plans. One would be compelled to go with the flow, knowingly or unknowingly. The structured period brings some fluid and dynamic moments later. So I thought, let me hold on to this 'onto something' for now.

The rules in art are created on the fly sometimes and that freedom makes it sketchy. The methods change during experimentations and improvisations which happen time to time, but within a relatively controlled setting. Otherwise, too many variables can create a disastrous and chaotic state of mind. I don't think that is the so called artistic freedom. Suggestions of total rulelessness is the opinionated view of the unexperienced. Convictions are formed when concepts start materializing right in front of our eyes. One cannot be double minded about this process. But one has to believe that the unknown would be favorable to him/er, no matter what happens. This is very similar process to that of a faith based activity.

I think when one does not have anything else to trust or to depend on, the total commitment comes naturally. As humans, we have the tendency to hold on to something definite and concrete. For example, when people get trained for para-jumping from an airplane; there is that infamous freefalling period before the parachute opens. During the fall, the tendency of the jumper is to frantically grab the air in front, with both the hands. But there is nothing other than thin air to hold on to. So the trainers always say that as soon as one jumps, one must hold tight to both the shoulder straps of the backpack. Because it is possible to go panicky when one tries to grab the nothingness in front. Art making sure has such freefalling moments, to say the least.

If one says and believes that s/he is an artist, then s/he is, and eventually s/he starts feeling like one. One surely has to go through the process of relentless working. Nobody will endure the hardship of the work unless one enjoys it. Engaging in a continous process adds a quality of affirmation along the way. Ultimately anything we value determines our life's trajectory, for sure.