Rafa (Rafael Cruz) has the gift of insight and words, which he bestows freely and generously. This is what he wrote about the piece I made at the Lucid Art Foundation.
“Watermarks, a fluid world where our human narratives and identities matter not. As Alison's brush hits the paper and the ink spreads, something happens that connects the artist's mind with realities beyond the surface of visible appearances, a world in perpetual motion. It cannot be pinned to any specific shape, as it is in constant flux and perpetual change. Alison´s art is not a search for a truth invisible to our human eye, but truth itself finding joyful random shapes. Her watermarks neither comment nor describe. They are not an instrument for change or a metaphorical representation of it: they are change itself. There is no thought or philosophical speculation, just action, and it is by acting that she taps with the primordial energy of creation, the ineffable mystery that is the origin of everything. The artist at one with the generative force of the universe. The result is both strangely beautiful and beautifully strange. These watermarks show the infinite contained in the finite, they are the breathing of life, the rhythm of fixity and fluidity as they alternate, the endless succession of the hidden and the manifest.”
My response: The piece you wrote on my work I did at the Lucid Art Foundation is so wonderful. To be seen is a gift. At the time of creating the work there is a great energy, an expansion of the universe, and then often it is quite diffitult to remember afterwards. I’m sure Norman experiences this too.
You came along and breathed it all back into life with your living words. Thank you.
Rafa’s response: It makes me so happy that you like my text. It took me a while to put it together, I let my ideas flow free first, trying to mimic somehow the creation of your work, then I chiselled it carefully, trying to get exactly what it means to me, but without forgetting what your art means to you, how you conceive it, as far as I understand it from our conversations and email exchanges. I think we are generally in the same wavelength about what art does and what it should do, but it is still tricky to put into words what is totally non discursive, a bit like talking about a symphony, i suppose. Music doesn't need words, that is the point of it, nor does the visual language of art. But I am a writer, so words are the tool of my trade. My challenge is to say what things are or feel like, in words. I always say I am a fisher of meanings, only in half jest, for I believe that the meaning of a text is mostly in the form, that's why poetry is, in my view, the only way in which truth can be apprehended, in words. Everything is a mystery, and to clarify and argue precisely about something is to falsify it, for everything is always in flow, and words are playful, treacherous even. Heisenberg said about quantum mechanics that if you think you understand it, you don't understand it at all. So, it was a responsibility to put into words that scroll you created in your artist retreat in California. But it was also enjoyable, a kind of translation. I like to think of myself as a medium rather than a creator. I channel the energies around me.
That you are so pleased with the result, makes it all worth it. Thanks for trusting me with your beautiful artwork. Such privilege!