A mostly hidden blog by Mechanical Grace.
When I was 8 or 9 I did a messy, free-form painting, the type that starts with beautiful colors but ends up a brownish tragedy. Still, small flashes of color remained. When I looked at the abstract mess after it had dried, I noticed a tiny shape that looked remarkably, precisely, like a small house, perched on a ledge. Suddenly the chaotic whorls became a cliff face, balancing this little house, and the grayish yellow strip across the top of the page, an odd-colored sky. Looking more carefully I found people, other little buildings, a horse. I marveled at having created such an objective reality, not because it was an accident-- on the contrary, I tried to forget that-- but rather because it seemed such an accomplishment to have achieved that impossible magic, verisimilitude. I kept the painting in the closet and would look at it in private, feeling unreasonably proud, and engrossed in the story I'd hidden in my own painting. I never expected anyone else to see the things I saw, and I still don't, but I work more intentionally now, so you never know...
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I’ve mentioned my love for contained chaos. But there are times when I hate chaos for the very reason that it works as well as order— as well, but not better. Order or chaos: I hate that it might not matter. When life overwhelms, function is the route to sanity, but if chaos and order are functionally interchangeable, how can I make a priority of order, which I know I ultimately need? What’s my motivation, as they say? Chaos is beautiful by choice or by acceptance, but not by resigned failure.
