This is enchanting, Adam. I'm enchanted by the way your mind works. Both of you. Or (I got this sense) all of you? I lost track of how many Adams were there. No wonder the guard kept stopping by.
I totally get this: "lonely in a way where you want to go tell someone immediately afterwards." Big smile.
I'm a shameless copycat; next time in a museum, I'm going to try this.
"All of you!" Omg, 3 Adams! What a twist that would have been! Where were you on Draft #72?
You will have to let me know your picture and how it goes. If you don't have a favorite at the Met, please stop by this one. After all the attention for a few minutes there, I think she's probably a little lonely now looking out at the lifeless eyes of all those tired museumgoers looking in through the glass.
Thanks for the happy grin. You and Adam keep good company. I was just at the Portland Art Museum’s 60s psychedelic band poster exhibition. I dare you to stare at one of those for 30 min.
Oh, an early draft had plenty of psychedelic posters and college recreation in it, but those paragraphs did not survive a paranoid editor. Let me just say, I'm not afraid of 30 minutes staring at a psychedelic poster. I have been to Narnia University.
An interview with yourself , very interesting. Curious, were you all the wiser for the experience or none the wiser? At the very least , you felt something, me too.
“Eyes aren’t windows to the soul. They are paintings of windows to the soul.”
Yes , the eyes, if Adam looked close enough, every brush stroke contains a double helix. My mom had a similar drawing of a Crane she picked up in Japan by a random Japanese artist. I basically grew up with that painting.
I love that Shohaku “…was known for his outlandish behavior …”
Character traits are not what I would expect to read about an artist.
I think the "known for his outlandish behavior" is fantastic. I wished they provided concrete examples... Mom knew her stuff... Funny thing is, we were watching a movie on Netflix the other day and in the back of a room there was a crane on the wall exactly like this crane. I made my wife stop the film so that I could take a picture of it. Now, I'm guessing these cranes are all over the place.
I always pictured Japanese artists as monks or painting in a spiritually meditative state, with calming Japanese musical instruments playing in the background . Apparently not this guy. Of course me being me, I had to look a bit further. I think it’s great you happened to pick this particular painting to write about, obviously the guy was a strange dude ,and this was one of his more ‘placid’ looking pieces. Read some of the titles of his paintings, like; 南泉斬猫図 “Nansen Cuts the Cat in Two” 😳🙀
I love, love this. I know and can feel the sitting there, looking, being with this painting. I love the idea of seeing into it till you get to the artist. I never quite felt that, when I used to sit, in the Met, or in the Asian Museum in Washington, D.C. before I moved to the Napa Valley. There are not many terrible things about being in California but the one great one is that it is so far from the Asian Art collection in the Met. (But I have the catalogue) Long comment, sorry, but reading this made my New Year’s morning!
Bonnie! You know "my" room(s)! I love it in there. I think the scrolls are practically magical (although I've made that point already). I actually dug into the history of Asian landscapes and it is incredibly interesting. Every time there's a dynasty change the whole artistic world upends itself. And the cycles go on for a 1000 years!
Do you know these scrolls?
(I envy you living in Napa Valley, fwiw. We could use some sun-baked California hillsides around Brooklyn this morning.)
I've always gotten a kick out of looking at a Van Gogh or something, finding one little brush mark and staring at it, probably for longer than he stared at it and you can see the little mark it's made and the momentary thought that went into it. I don't think there's any other art where you can stop time to look at what an artist is doing. It's very cool.
Thank you so much, James. I think we're both in good company. I've adored Asian art (particularly landscapes) since I was a child. I cut a lot out of this about that because it didn't fit here, but I share your sentiments. I took a peek at your own work as well. Gorgeous. Thank you for subscribing as well. Content is pretty varied here, but hopefully this will be a fun place to poke your head in every once in a while.
I love Asian Scroll art, particularly the expressiveness of good monotone simplicity. I will start my staring at home, perhaps with my brother's Green Cat.
It is intriguing. And, as I noted over there, I like the clouds and I felt a lot like the Green Cat today, so I'm all in. Let me know what happens after 30 minutes in there. :-)
It has taken two weeks to get to this. I just published a piece concerning my staring at Green Cat for thirty minutes. You can find it in my Something Current section. https://chrisgartland.substack.com/p/green-cat-01172025
So, we are not alone. (Chloe just posted on something called The Order of the Third Bird, check them/it out)
Very related: for years I've had a weird thing when I leave museums that faces are very intense for about fifteen minutes. I've also wondered if the brain starts focusing so much on visual stimuli that something carries over afterwards. It's a very odd effect. And... another weird visual, related thing: I used to find that if I stared at a specific, undiluted patch of color hard enough, I had a kind of synesthesia, not with other senses exactly, but I knew something deeper about the color. Hard to explain, but very real. Mostly in high school. In fact, I'm not sure I've been able to do it in years, but it was like understanding that exact shade of color somehow. This is pre "Narnia University," fwiw.
It's a weird connection (as usual). Chloe's note (somewhere above) simply called out the name of the group, At first, I thought it was her joke. It was not. There are splinter groups apparently. We shall form a chapter.
Extraordinary! Though since the whole meta - Moby incident we shouldn't be surprised. And I see Sal Randolph is part of it. I also fall into any available Francis Bacon. Certainly at shows I make it a habit to walk with speed past everything, turn around dat the end and traverse slowly against the crowd until I found the one or two pieces I want to focus on and then stay with them for the duration. Also, refusal to read the blurbs on gallery walls.
Although you have a universal point of view in diving into a painting that you enjoyed before hand, you have taken it many steps further on your journey between yourself and yourself. Phenomenal writing, and I learned a lot from it. Thank you for starting the year out in a unique waythat one’s everyone’s perspective.
Fascinating! This was fun to read Adams. I might try this at home, with some of the artwork and creations that I have collected from other creatives to see if I can step inside a picture and wander round there for a little while with its inhabitants, or shrink to the size of a knitted frog or carved obsidian cat and wander round my desk, or maybe even join the smouldering pyrography raven in his plaque!
I want to stop by and look at your art! The carved obsidian cat! Or the raven! That is my kind of Sunday afternoon. I will meet you behind the desk. Look for flaming feathers and a bird talking to itself.
Ps. What does Adam see when he looks into Adam’s eye? Seems there’s some kind of Lao Tzu revelation in here—when the self sees itself, its truth—nothingness—is revealed.
Julie G. pointed out above that there may be more than two Adams involved here. The thought hadn't occurred to me, but having all six of them quarreling and interrupting each other would be just about right.
Please let me know if any of the Hollies try this and report back.
One Adam split into six “quarreling” with each other, they would have cordoned you off with velvet rope and stanchions posts, called the police or an ambulance.
They're talkers, by the way, the Hollies. So many conversations, and no small number of them out loud. ;0) (I have spent a lot of time in the wilderness alone.)
I'm less a talker out loud than a pace around the periphery of the room like a madman. I have a VERY strange pacing disorder. For another time, Hollies.
“Eyes aren’t windows to the soul. They are paintings of windows to the soul.” I don’t find this lonely at all … it expands and deepens what a soul is beyond the surface. Something we feel but cannot contain or reduce.
Okay, I’m ready for your next meditative practice.
Solitude might be a better word. There are certainly things that are "here" but not at all in the way that we think of them as being here. We're not "behind our eyes" and neither are other people. There is a massive blanket of consciousness making sense of things though and it is wrapped over something very mysterious.
Maybe I should have just posted that.
Please find a painting (or Alaskan vista) and report back.
All ears. Unrelated department, probably not for the comments here, but hoping to come to Alaska with D.N. this summer. Will have to say hi when passing through. We can find a painting. :-)
This is enchanting, Adam. I'm enchanted by the way your mind works. Both of you. Or (I got this sense) all of you? I lost track of how many Adams were there. No wonder the guard kept stopping by.
I totally get this: "lonely in a way where you want to go tell someone immediately afterwards." Big smile.
I'm a shameless copycat; next time in a museum, I'm going to try this.
"All of you!" Omg, 3 Adams! What a twist that would have been! Where were you on Draft #72?
You will have to let me know your picture and how it goes. If you don't have a favorite at the Met, please stop by this one. After all the attention for a few minutes there, I think she's probably a little lonely now looking out at the lifeless eyes of all those tired museumgoers looking in through the glass.
You had me at “heron” (crane! I know I know)
Me too Julie!
Please report back.
Adam, have you heard of The Order of the Third Bird? Perhaps you could join...
Holy Crap! I just looked them up! Now, I'm going to wait for the invite. :-)
Good Lord. There are more of us. and Sal Randolph! (who is here).
I’ll own being a slow looker (it’s much of what my book is about). Of the Birds, alas, little can be said with any confidence.
Thanks for the happy grin. You and Adam keep good company. I was just at the Portland Art Museum’s 60s psychedelic band poster exhibition. I dare you to stare at one of those for 30 min.
Oh, an early draft had plenty of psychedelic posters and college recreation in it, but those paragraphs did not survive a paranoid editor. Let me just say, I'm not afraid of 30 minutes staring at a psychedelic poster. I have been to Narnia University.
This explains a lot.
Sigh Probably. For better or worse.
An interview with yourself , very interesting. Curious, were you all the wiser for the experience or none the wiser? At the very least , you felt something, me too.
“Eyes aren’t windows to the soul. They are paintings of windows to the soul.”
Yes , the eyes, if Adam looked close enough, every brush stroke contains a double helix. My mom had a similar drawing of a Crane she picked up in Japan by a random Japanese artist. I basically grew up with that painting.
I love that Shohaku “…was known for his outlandish behavior …”
Character traits are not what I would expect to read about an artist.
I think the "known for his outlandish behavior" is fantastic. I wished they provided concrete examples... Mom knew her stuff... Funny thing is, we were watching a movie on Netflix the other day and in the back of a room there was a crane on the wall exactly like this crane. I made my wife stop the film so that I could take a picture of it. Now, I'm guessing these cranes are all over the place.
I always pictured Japanese artists as monks or painting in a spiritually meditative state, with calming Japanese musical instruments playing in the background . Apparently not this guy. Of course me being me, I had to look a bit further. I think it’s great you happened to pick this particular painting to write about, obviously the guy was a strange dude ,and this was one of his more ‘placid’ looking pieces. Read some of the titles of his paintings, like; 南泉斬猫図 “Nansen Cuts the Cat in Two” 😳🙀
https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/SogaShohaku.html
I absolutely love them. I hadn't done any research on him at all. That stays between us. But this image is incredible: 寒山拾得図 Kanzan & Jittoku
The Cat in Two, well, maybe not so much. "Holds kitten in Air" and I would have been all in.
I also loved "No successors." Awesome. One and done. Fuck you all. I'm out. Here's a Crane for Adam.
I’m glad you went to the link to check it out, I knew you would enjoy it.
I love, love this. I know and can feel the sitting there, looking, being with this painting. I love the idea of seeing into it till you get to the artist. I never quite felt that, when I used to sit, in the Met, or in the Asian Museum in Washington, D.C. before I moved to the Napa Valley. There are not many terrible things about being in California but the one great one is that it is so far from the Asian Art collection in the Met. (But I have the catalogue) Long comment, sorry, but reading this made my New Year’s morning!
Bonnie! You know "my" room(s)! I love it in there. I think the scrolls are practically magical (although I've made that point already). I actually dug into the history of Asian landscapes and it is incredibly interesting. Every time there's a dynasty change the whole artistic world upends itself. And the cycles go on for a 1000 years!
Do you know these scrolls?
(I envy you living in Napa Valley, fwiw. We could use some sun-baked California hillsides around Brooklyn this morning.)
"seeing into it till you get to the artist" -- yes, yes
I've always gotten a kick out of looking at a Van Gogh or something, finding one little brush mark and staring at it, probably for longer than he stared at it and you can see the little mark it's made and the momentary thought that went into it. I don't think there's any other art where you can stop time to look at what an artist is doing. It's very cool.
It's a beautiful picture. I'm also a little obsessed with eastern art, so thank you for sharing this.
Thank you so much, James. I think we're both in good company. I've adored Asian art (particularly landscapes) since I was a child. I cut a lot out of this about that because it didn't fit here, but I share your sentiments. I took a peek at your own work as well. Gorgeous. Thank you for subscribing as well. Content is pretty varied here, but hopefully this will be a fun place to poke your head in every once in a while.
If someone else is reading this, check these pictures out: https://substack.com/home/post/p-153078676
Thanks Adam, I look forward to reading more of your work. J
I love Asian Scroll art, particularly the expressiveness of good monotone simplicity. I will start my staring at home, perhaps with my brother's Green Cat.
Post a picture!
I just posted a photo of Green Cat in my notes. My brother didn’t like it so much, but I thought it was intriguing, so he gave it to me.
It is intriguing. And, as I noted over there, I like the clouds and I felt a lot like the Green Cat today, so I'm all in. Let me know what happens after 30 minutes in there. :-)
It has taken two weeks to get to this. I just published a piece concerning my staring at Green Cat for thirty minutes. You can find it in my Something Current section. https://chrisgartland.substack.com/p/green-cat-01172025
I do this with Rothko in the Tate. Sometimes I’ve felt myself falling. Often I’ve cried. If I were a painter I’d want this for my paintings.
So, we are not alone. (Chloe just posted on something called The Order of the Third Bird, check them/it out)
Very related: for years I've had a weird thing when I leave museums that faces are very intense for about fifteen minutes. I've also wondered if the brain starts focusing so much on visual stimuli that something carries over afterwards. It's a very odd effect. And... another weird visual, related thing: I used to find that if I stared at a specific, undiluted patch of color hard enough, I had a kind of synesthesia, not with other senses exactly, but I knew something deeper about the color. Hard to explain, but very real. Mostly in high school. In fact, I'm not sure I've been able to do it in years, but it was like understanding that exact shade of color somehow. This is pre "Narnia University," fwiw.
Knowing something deeper than the colour was what would happen when I fell into Rothko.
Can you link me to it? Can't find it...
It's a weird connection (as usual). Chloe's note (somewhere above) simply called out the name of the group, At first, I thought it was her joke. It was not. There are splinter groups apparently. We shall form a chapter.
https://www.bgc.bard.edu/research/articles/539/the-order-of-the-third
Extraordinary! Though since the whole meta - Moby incident we shouldn't be surprised. And I see Sal Randolph is part of it. I also fall into any available Francis Bacon. Certainly at shows I make it a habit to walk with speed past everything, turn around dat the end and traverse slowly against the crowd until I found the one or two pieces I want to focus on and then stay with them for the duration. Also, refusal to read the blurbs on gallery walls.
Although you have a universal point of view in diving into a painting that you enjoyed before hand, you have taken it many steps further on your journey between yourself and yourself. Phenomenal writing, and I learned a lot from it. Thank you for starting the year out in a unique waythat one’s everyone’s perspective.
Thank you for starting off my New Year with such a compliment. 🙏
more than deserving, well earned. Merci.
Fascinating! This was fun to read Adams. I might try this at home, with some of the artwork and creations that I have collected from other creatives to see if I can step inside a picture and wander round there for a little while with its inhabitants, or shrink to the size of a knitted frog or carved obsidian cat and wander round my desk, or maybe even join the smouldering pyrography raven in his plaque!
I want to stop by and look at your art! The carved obsidian cat! Or the raven! That is my kind of Sunday afternoon. I will meet you behind the desk. Look for flaming feathers and a bird talking to itself.
You’d be very welcome any time Nathan, I’ll make a cuppa!
Me too!
❤️
Ps. What does Adam see when he looks into Adam’s eye? Seems there’s some kind of Lao Tzu revelation in here—when the self sees itself, its truth—nothingness—is revealed.
I think mostly the self is chatty.
Aka, nothingness. :)
I freaking love this experiment, Adam. And the concept of a loneliness that makes you want to tell someone immediately is really beautiful and true.
I feel like I want to try this someday.
Also, the Adam on Adam interview it is perfect for this piece!
Julie G. pointed out above that there may be more than two Adams involved here. The thought hadn't occurred to me, but having all six of them quarreling and interrupting each other would be just about right.
Please let me know if any of the Hollies try this and report back.
One Adam split into six “quarreling” with each other, they would have cordoned you off with velvet rope and stanchions posts, called the police or an ambulance.
🤣
They're talkers, by the way, the Hollies. So many conversations, and no small number of them out loud. ;0) (I have spent a lot of time in the wilderness alone.)
I'm less a talker out loud than a pace around the periphery of the room like a madman. I have a VERY strange pacing disorder. For another time, Hollies.
So many Adams!
I will report back on the Hollies. :)
Nice. And a next "thirty minutes" might well be quite different. (Those crane feet!...)
The feet are incredibly intense and the knees. That sharp little razor clam beak jumps out at me, too.
“Eyes aren’t windows to the soul. They are paintings of windows to the soul.” I don’t find this lonely at all … it expands and deepens what a soul is beyond the surface. Something we feel but cannot contain or reduce.
Okay, I’m ready for your next meditative practice.
Solitude might be a better word. There are certainly things that are "here" but not at all in the way that we think of them as being here. We're not "behind our eyes" and neither are other people. There is a massive blanket of consciousness making sense of things though and it is wrapped over something very mysterious.
Maybe I should have just posted that.
Please find a painting (or Alaskan vista) and report back.
I failed to mention that I loved this piece and that line … stay tuned on the Alaska report :)
All ears. Unrelated department, probably not for the comments here, but hoping to come to Alaska with D.N. this summer. Will have to say hi when passing through. We can find a painting. :-)