Starting, restarting and making a mark...
"Beginning is the hardest step", Carlo Roveli says. "The first words open a space," but then lock you in. Every syllable becomes an anchor. A fulcrum. A fixed point upon which everything lifts, pivots, and moves. All art is the art of starting.
But, I always say the wrong things. Always make the wrong moves. My first mark is the one made with the least amount of confidence. The line drawn with the greatest amount of hesitancy.
First impressions matter. They are vital. Irreplaceable. There are no second chances at them we're told. First loves. First concerts. First kisses. First times. You can't recreate them. You can't get back to them. The first moments after a catastrophe. The first time absences where a presence used to be. All the first things that show us how the world works. How things can be. How wide they swing. All the possibility. All the lonely. How exciting it can get. How the planet turns unfairly. How it can all be so devastating. How compassion comes unexpectedly. All art is the art of being rescued by irredeemable things.
“Art does not promise solutions”,
says. It answers no questions, but it helps us to collect them. To connect them. To tun them into something with texture, color, sound, and shape. An arrangement of things that revealing the essential essence of our being here."Beginning is the hardest step", Carlo Rovelli says. First impressions matter. They are vital. Irreplaceable. There are no second chances at them we're told. But, all art is the art of iterating. Of starting. And starting again.
***The Make Your Mark collages here were designed to accompany a poem by
. Please be sure to check the poem, it’s a incredible piece of writing, and I was overjoyed to get to make something for it.
This is absolutely brilliant, I'm so struck by how you've structured this in powerfully re-iterating the start and it's so interesting to see the designs behind the final piece
It is true that in the world we live in, the time of instancy and scrolling, the sheer volume that is out there that we only get one opportunity to ‘make (y)our mark’ so to speak.
Art forces us to ask questions - the answers only lying between the answers of those who view it. Artists pose those questions, the answers only in those who perceive it - there are no right answers only a mound of contradictory views… and this is what makes it beautiful...