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EVERY STEP IS GOING
SOMEWHERE INTRODUCTION “Since early youth I had been searching for some secret, some key with which I could gain access to basic knowledge, answer for some fundamental questions. Just what I was looking for, what I meant by basic knowledge or fundamental questions, I found difficult to define. I would follow a trail of clues” (Burroughs, 1992). Since birth, experiences start to build and shape our way of behaving and thinking. Deeply influential settings like family, environment, society and culture are all partly creating our identity and ideas of the world around us. These, and surely many other elements, are building who we think we are. We become the sum of our experiences. It can happen that we take these settings around us as a solid reality and we might stop seeing freshly and clearly like we did as a child. The view of the world and ideas about our selves can become clouded with the complexity of everything. This child-like attitude is something that we have to learn again by forgetting the idea of the self that we have built up over the years. As writer and artist Nachmanovich argues “If we are free and imperturbable, like the clouds, then whatever creation is in us will flow out, naturally and simply… but we have our hands full with our own limited and limiting conception of selfhood” (1990, 194). Having distance from familiar surroundings can be a clarifying experience. Being in a new place either physically or mentally, offers different perspectives on how we see ourselves. This can help us to broaden the way we see the world around us. As Carl Gustav Jung wrote, “In the darkness of anything external to me I find, without recognising it as such, an interior or psychic life that is my own” (Bishop1993, 132). Jung travelled to foreign places and other culture patterns, so that he could look back at the one he had left. Travelling has been a great eye opener for me. Different cultures and places have showed me how life can operate very differently depending on culture’s beliefs and values. From this I have learned to revaluate and to look at life and the world from different angles. Seeing different approaches to material and spiritual life has clarified the fact that there is no single right way to live or look at things. These experiences also have opened up different choices and values for me. Buddhism has also offered clarifying system of values for me to reflect upon. Paradoxical concept of knowing nothing as the fundamental principle of existence is particularly perplexing “Grasping the fundamental principle of existence is recognising that deep down one knows nothing, yet paradoxically this no-thing ness is the infinitely wise, loving and dynamic source of all things” http://www.netowne.com/eastern/buddhism (4.11.2004). In summer 2004, I travelled to North- India, Western Himalaya to see and experience the living way of the traditional culture of Ladakh, of which Buddhism forms an important part. It was important to me to experience the place and people who live under the Buddhist influence so that I could see how it is taking place in its original form. This dissertation is an investigation of the interests and influences for my art making process. Firstly, Buddhist philosophy is introduced. In particular, what it is, where it has spread, and how art and Buddhism can be connected. Then, living Buddhism in Ladakh is explored through my own personal experience. Also, three of the Buddhist concepts which were central in the experience are explained. Next, similarities of travel and art making will be discussed exploring the similar elements in them. After that, artist John Cages’ way of making art is used as an example for how Zen Buddhism is reflected in his approach. He is an artist who has inspired me and whose artwork echoes my own interest and findings. His approach to art has broadened the area of seeing, opening up new areas of sensitivity and helping us to see with greater clarity what we have already seen. Lastly, my own art making process is discussed as a multilayered and organic process. Rather than see this dissertation as a clear answer describing my creative process, I have decided to approach these areas philosophically and deal with this more as a question than an answer. It is a question which creates a more wholesome picture of my current state and influences which simultaneously introduces further directions to be explored. I am approaching different entities of interest which are overlapping and shifting in me seeing how they come together to help me to understand why I want to work in a certain way. 1. THE BUDDHIST WAY AND CONTEMPORARY ART Buddhist values Still evolving after a period of 2500 years since its origin in India, Buddhism has re-invented itself again and again. It has moved through a multitude of cultures and depending on the needs of the time and place has been seen as a path or practice, a religion or philosophy. Buddhism’s sphere of influence has extended far beyond traditional religious and cultural settings, reaching into the fields of art and science, ecology, medicine and even politics. Buddhism as a metaphysical system never gets old because it handles the fundamental questions of existence. It helps to understand the basic mechanisms of suffering and happiness which are part of everyone’s life. Buddhist monk, Matthieu Ricard, says that spiritual life is for him an ongoing struggle to break the hard layers of illusion. Spiritual life is based on experiences and discoveries which reach as far into the individual self as discoveries of science has into space. This experience is always fresh and is renewing itself offering obstacles and adventures. It means applying what is already learned into the present moment by using good and bad circumstances of life to learn and develop one self. Real innovation can be shown in an ability to use every moment of life for reaching the aims one has set for oneself (Revel and Ricard, 1997).The central idea in Buddhism is emptying the mind from the illusion of self which limits the perception of our selves and the world and is the cause of all suffering. This is why Buddhists meditate to clear and empty their minds. So there can be empty space where true being can arise, the inner self and true nature, which is part of everything and anything (Gothoni and Niinimäki, 1984). Diamond sutra describes self with metaphors such as a morning star, a bubble in a stream, a vision or a dream (Bishop, 1993). American Tibetan Buddhist monk Thurman describes the state of the Buddha-hood that “One actually experiences the reality of absolute void ness, one’s own and other beings’ freedom from a fixed individual and substantial self and all things’ freedom from intrinsic identity or objectivity” and adding to that “one lives this realization as the happy relaxation of futile servitude to the illusion of being a fixed subject in a real objective world…”(Thurman 1995, 11). Buddhism is a unique philosophy in a sense that it is based on Buddha’s personal experience. The personal experience is a foundation of Buddhist philosophy and the task of the intelligent is to guide the mind to the higher consciousness by setting up questions which are outside of the intelligent. That is why we have to keep asking, until we learn that our intellect can not give answers alone (Humphreys, 1969). Observing the surrounding world has made me wonder why birds fly only in a horizontal line, even they have wings to fly high up in the sky. Are our minds similar, from here to there, linear world, full of lines and functions? How about learning something else, other ways of being, let all go and fly straight up. This is reflecting on idea of the freedom of the limiting self and sudden liberation. In Tibetan Buddhism the process of learning is gradual through practice. Over time the mind develops and becomes more aware and freer from the limiting self. In Zen Buddhism there is a saying “start from the top of the hill” which echoes the belief of sudden realization through shock or surprise (Humphreys, 1969, My trans.). Being in a present moment has an emphasis in Buddhist teachings. Buddhism can be helpful when one desires to find basic truths, explore the depth of the mind and the beauty of the world. The absolute level of newness is the freshness of this moment and the clear consciousness of this moment which is not living in the past nor imagining the future (Gothoni and Niinimäki 1984). Spreading of Buddhism First Buddhism was centred in the area of the Bihar state in India and later it spread all over India. In the 1200 century other religions like Hinduism and Islam started to take the place of Buddhism. Over a thousand years Buddhism has slowly disappeared from there, where it was originally born. In the eight to ninth century King Trisong Detsen invited Buddhism to the country of Tibet and many Buddhist schools were built and Buddhism flourished until the Chinese invasion in 1950. In Tibet, all levels and directions of Buddhism were preserved, Theravada, Vajrayana and Mahayana. Buddhism found its way to the south, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma and Laos in the form of Theravada- Buddhism. Later on, in the next century, it spread in the form of Mahayana- Buddhism to north China and from there to Japan and split into the many branches, the most significant being Zen Buddhism. In the 1950 and 1960’s, Zen Buddhism was the most known form of Buddhism in the western countries and America. The fundamental substance of Buddhism has stayed the same (Gothoni and Niinimäki, 1984) (My trans.). Existential principles being Buddhism’s qualities, is what makes it so adaptable for many cultures and situations. Because of the sad situation in Tibet, many monks have needed to live in exile and they are now living around the world continuing the traditions of Buddhism in their new surroundings. This is offering people all over the world direct access to the knowledge of Buddhism through teaching from monks who have knowledge of the long Buddhist traditions. The peaceful philosophy of Buddhism can offer much for the people who are dealing with the fast pace and complexities of the modern world. Also, many Western and American people have become Buddhist monks and are writing about Buddhism. In this way they are bringing it closer to the people who are interested in learning more about it. All over the world there are many Buddhist communities carrying out the traditions of Buddhism in many ways and forms. Art and Buddhism One striking parallel between Buddhist and artistic practice is that works of art can jolt us out of our habitual ways of looking at and thinking about the world. What can be learnt from Buddhism in this instance is that one can approach art as being a question rather than an answer and that the viewer is not passive or separate from the artwork being looked at. What we see is created by our mind as much as the artwork is created by the artist. Buddhism suggests that, “The mind is the pre eminent power in the creation of reality, that through the control of our own thoughts we can create worlds as real as, if not more so, than the ‘world’ which is commonly accepted as the end-all and be-all of daily existence” http//www.artandbuddhism.org/papers/wp2_mt.html (8.11.2004). For me, Buddhism is a good tool to illuminate the daunting openness of the modern world and contemporary visual art. Today, art is moving in many fields of themes and concepts. There is no clear role for the artist which creates unrestricted possibilities for communicating their ideas. The versatility of contemporary art stretches our understanding of what art can be and how it can be done. I see contemporary art as an open space floating and moving, as a surface reflecting the state of our understanding and values. This mirroring is experienced by the individual as a unique moment between themselves and piece of art. The versatility of art is good in many ways because it requires individuals to think for themselves. This kind of openness in the artwork can be a space created by not knowing what a particular art piece is about. Buddhism offers different ways to address reality and the practice of art, serving as a catalyst for ‘awakened’ consciousness. Buddhism provides fresh insights into fundamental concepts about space, time, self and the role of artist, and affects the definition of art itself http//www.buddhaproject.org (14.11.04). What ever the art is, to understand or feel something about it, we have to open ourselves for it to be receptive. For me, Buddhism as a philosophy is providing a clarifying system of values. I see Buddhism as a certain kind of connection point which can help me also to reflect my own views and values in a larger entirety. These ideas have influenced also the way I make art. In my personal creative process it has been important to accept the openness and uncertainty of the process as a balancing part of it. In the essay ’Aesthetics of Silence’ professor Timo Klemola writes about Zen art and its expression of the formless self. The element of silence in an artwork is a direct consequence of what it tries to express which is something that can not be expressed through words or pictures. This art is trace of something, which can appear only through trace, because it is something beyond objectivity. It is a trace, which also points to the path and invites to follow, those who are interested in this kind of journeys http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/mattiet/filosofia/talfit/hiljaisuuden.html (22.01.05) (My trans.). Spiritual values in art or the motives of making art in this case opens up a deeper view of what art can express. These kinds of values and thinking seems not to be emphasised in Western societies. That is something what we can learn from other cultures and from their aesthetics and values. 2. EXPERIENCE OF LIFE AND BUDDHISM IN LADAKH Having explored Buddhism from books, which affected my thinking and therefore my processes of making art, I had a growing desire to experience and see Buddhism in its original environment. Being aware of different interpretations of Buddhist concepts I felt that it would be clarifying to live with people who had grown into it by having monasteries and spiritual emphasis already in their environment and in the structure of their society and culture. By contrast Buddhism for me had come through personal growth and interests. I applied for the Ferdinand Zweig Scholarship to travel to Ladakh to see and learn from the traditional life and ancient culture of Ladakh where Buddhism forms an important part of the culture. Set deep in the Indian Himalayas on the western edge of the Tibetan plateau, Ladakh, or “Little Tibet”, is one of the highest and driest inhabited places on earth. This is where my journey began. First, I explored the areas in different valleys and villages in Ladakh. I travelled to see several monasteries and I took part in some monastic festivals. This gave me a feel of the environment and culture which influences Ladakhis’ life. During my three month stay in India, I lived for one month with a local family, helping them with the farm work. This gave me an opportunity to take part in the life of the local people. The traditional way of Ladakhis reflected Buddhist values. I noticed that their mental and physical environment seemed to support the spiritual values. For me, the most visible qualities which were emphasised in the everyday life and in the environment of Ladakhis were interconnectivity, simplicity, clarity and transformation. Interconnectivity I felt that in Ladakh many connections were still strongly alive between people and in their relationship to natural living. Life in the west can be over-saturated in many respects with information, material culture, technology and life lived at an immense speed. People have become more dependent on systems and more disconnected from nature. The current rate of change and development seems to add more to our collective experience but without any pause to give us the chance to make any sense of it. If the environment where we live is not natural, it is easy to forget what natural living can be. The president of the lay Buddhist organization of Tokyo, Nichiko Niwano, describes the state of the industrialized world clearly: “In our modern industrialized world, people tend to lose sight of meaningful living amid the complexities forced upon them by overwhelming materialism and by the flood of information that engulfs them, making them virtual slaves to their environment” (Niwano 1990, 37). The following examples describe how some connections still seem to be strong in Ladakh. People lived with the nature not merely from it. The pureness and simplicity of the surroundings emphasized the power and importance of the people and nature living together. To be able to see where water comes from and where it goes, to know that vegetables we ate grew in the garden, to be able to trace down the sources of things, gave a clear feeling of connection to the place and oneself in a chain of it all. Another difference was how young and old people seemed to have a strong relationship with each other. All areas of life were more connected and equally appreciated for example there were not great divisions between work and free time in the countryside. I felt that it was clear for people of Ladakh that all parts of life were important and that they had a place and meaning in a holistic picture of life. The following account is just one of the many moments of its kind that I experienced which demonstrates the care of the Ladakhi people. Once I was in a bus waiting for a driver to come and an older woman came in and gave apples to all of us who were on the bus. We got a few apples each. Soon, some little girls came on to the bus and the girl next to me offered them her apples. It was so refreshing to see this kind of sharing which goes on and carries good energy forward. It felt that even the tiniest positive action grew like a seed or was like a water drop falling in to the water creating growing circles around it. I was reminded that everything matters and every step we take is going somewhere. Simplicity and Clarity There were many ancient monasteries in Ladakh, one had to make an effort to climb up there to visit. These beautifully simplistic white buildings rose from the hills of the barren mountains to create peaceful and isolated settings for monks to concentrate on the Dharma (Buddhist studies). This created the ideal place to follow Buddhist teachings, but Mikael Tenzin Dönden says that contemplation methods, worship rituals, monastery life, all these are only assisting tools and methods in spiritual development not the aims (Gothoni and Niinimäki 1984, 18). The learning from Vipasana meditation course, which I did before the farm life started, I believe helped me to adjust to the different life style. In Vipasana tradition, walking, cleaning and sitting meditations are all equally powerful ways to concentrate and calm the mind. This is showing us that peacefulness can be found from anywhere if we have a grounding of peacefulness within ourselves. In this way meditation is created to be part of every situation, not a separate moment away from every day activities. Thai master Dhiravamsa identifies the essence of meditation as actual awareness in life, the constant movement of awareness. He says that, “if you practise awareness everything will be revealed…Everything is within you, and all that must be done is to look at it, to be constantly aware of yourself in all situations” (Bucknell and Stuart-Fox 1993, 63). During my stay in the family I had an opportunity to participate in many tasks carried out in the farm. One of the jobs amongst the others, were to help the daughter Yangchen to take sheep and cows from field to field. While the animals were eating we had some spare time and I was observing what was around me. The huge scale of nature was overwhelming, gigantic clouds reflecting shadows to the textured purple mountains. This immenseness was at the same time very simple and basic. These were the two dominating elements reduced to two such basic components, the space on the sky and the space on the earth. The fact that the mountains are solid and clouds are not did not make any difference to how I was perceiving the size and overwhelming effect from both. One difference was that clouds were moving and mountains did not. It was this great dialogue between movement and complete stillness. The way clouds exist, ever changing and drifting, is a very different existence from the ancient wind carved mountains. These two great spaces or “actors” were there together creating the dominating part of the landscape or ‘the visual play” of Ladakh. Quietness and stillness of surroundings were clearly offering space for contemplation and peacefulness. In Buddhist stories clouds are used for describing things metaphorically, “Just as clouds cling to nothing, floating free and chancing with the wind, acceptance of change is the essence of nonattachment and expresses the perfect freedom of meditation” http://www.purifymind.com/draftingclouds.htm (16.1.2005). The ink painting called the Autumn and Winter Landscapes by Japanese painter Sesshu from 15th century reflects similar qualities than the experience of the clouds and mountains earlier. Artist Alan Johnston illustrates this painting as “…space and nature become like two mirrors reflecting each other – a making gesture itself, articulated in a wider and more total void… Time and incident are combined on the one surface” (Todd 2000, 54). The experiences from daily life and experiences with art can move in the same kind of field of noticing and contemplating upon what we see. Natural Cycle and Transformation The traditional life in the countryside showed me how in many ways life is based on cycles. People who lived close to nature and had a traditional way of living needed to do everything from the beginning to end by them selves. Because of this one was able to see, for example, the cycle of food, how the seeds were sown into the field and in the end of the cycle the composted human waste was used as a fertiliser nourishing the soil of the land. In life everything is in constant change and Ladakhi peoples’ life followed the cycles of nature. Everything had its meaning and nothing was artificial. Therefore, everything came from the land and went back to it without disturbing the balance of the nature. Nature formed the rhythm of life. These same elements were and still are part of peoples’ lives who live in a natural setting. For me, it was particularly fascinating to be able to see how one function ended and the new one began. The cycle of nature includes the natural cycle of the life of the human being. To realize, that the end of something can be a beginning for another and a continuation through transformation. Through life experiences and art making it has become clearer that everything is part of the other. How different times in life leads to the other ones, how meetings with people can open up unexpected possibilities, how by seeing something leads the idea further. These are just a few examples of how often things and moments flow, like a chain reaction, always taking new steps and shifting the form slightly. This to happen, to ride on the wave of the moments we have to be awake, keep ears and eyes open because in the end we are making these connections and catching the flying possibilities for our selves. In art making it has been helpful to remember that the creative process itself is moving and changing, it has its up and downs. It all moves in cycles. Being interested in the nature of change, my own art deals with a transformation through natural process. I have used discarded objects opening new functions to them by looking them differently out of their original function. The rusted objects were the starting point for this thought process. This exploration has moved to the area of considering the effects of different elements, for example printing with fire. By using nature as a mark maker, it has been interesting to see how marks from natural processes have the quality of freedom and randomness and that all is beyond my decision making. I feel in this way I am learning from nature. 3. THE CREATIVE PROCESS AS PARALLEL TO THE JOURNEY Buddhism talks about life as a journey and this is a fundamental key point for me in my art making process. The Buddhist concept of the meaning of life as a journey “lies not in the arrival at the certain place but in the progress toward it; in the movement itself and in the gradual unfoldment of events, conditions, and experiences” http://www.artandbudhism.org/papers/wp2_mt.html (8.11.04). The following text is from my travel diary describing the feelings just after arrival: On arriving to the new place, all feels strangely empty. I am observing my feelings. It feels like landing without quite touching the ground. Moving through new space, it is almost like connecting my cells to this place, slowly. Everything is, but like a picture which day by day starts to become more three-dimensional. Noticing, looking, observing, being and learning from everything around me and at the same time, learning from myself in this new place. The thoughts that move in the mind feel oddly clearer here than in a familiar environment. During my journey in Ladakh I came to realize that the process of travelling can be seen as parallel to the process of my art making. Being in an unknown place has got similar elements to the art making process. In both cases, traveller/artist is a pioneer in the area and one has no clear direction where one should go. Everything is wide open in the beginning and slowly the journey starts to form itself. Many things influence the journey such as change and decision. For me the creation of an artwork and travelling is to move along with uncertainty yet trusting the process and knowing that I am moving somewhere, even though I might not be able to clearly see where a particular action is taking me. Aims are set and particular methods are used, but only as starting points. From then on, the entire process involves the welcoming of surprises, accidents and the unexpected. It is the balance between controlling and letting go. I think that by accepting uncertainty as an integral part of creation, the process is strengthened by it. In this way the mind is more open for all that happens along the process. To me art making is a search and journey where being in the present moment becomes the primary preoccupation. In travelling the moment is all that I have. In my opinion, I think it would be good if the very same feeling of being awake could continue in familiar settings that I could see things the way they are, freshly. This is an important point in the creative process, particularly when spontaneity and experimentation are part of it. Nachmanovitch has also expressed the importance of being in the moment in art making: “For art to appear, we have to disappear. Mind and sense are arrested for a moment, fully in the experience. Nothing else exists. When we disappear in this way everything around us becomes a surprise, new and fresh. Self and environment unite. We see things just as we and they are, yet we are able to guide and direct them to become just the way we want them” (Nachmanovitch 1990, 51). Visiting a place of extremes like Ladakh, showed me how a new place can put one in the position of having to re-evaluate the ways in which one sees the world, life and therefore art. Another important aspect of the journey was that I made it alone and my ‘self’ was the reflecting surface for everything that I experienced and saw. Being separated from the familiar, ‘self’ offered a space to observe my views and values against the new background. Sören Kirkegaards’ philosophical view could be described that man is standing on the edge of the cliff and if he has the belief, he will jump to the unknown believing that he will arrive somewhere. Journey to the foreign places and creative process both have similar feel of jumping to the unknown, yet trusting that by jumping we will arrive somewhere. Working in an experimental way and not knowing what will happen next, creates a state of mind to be awake not only with the process of making art but with everything around, because anything can become part of the process. Here Nachmanovitch provides insight into the nature of a journey which could as well be describing my own art making process, “A walk, following your intuitive prompting, down the streets far beyond a planned tour of the tried and tested. Such a walk is totally different from random drifting. Leaving your eyes and ears wide open, you allow your likes and dislikes, your conscious and unconscious desires and irritations, your irrational hunches, to guide you. You are structured at first only, perhaps, by the date of the plane departure. As the pattern of people and places unfolds, the trip, like an improvised piece of music, reveals its own inner structure and rhythm. Thus, you set the stage for fateful encounters” (Nachmanovitch 1990, 19). When working in this way, it means freeing oneself from plans being ready to go with what ever happens and letting the process guide you further. Of course, the self edits and selects according to preferences and choosing the directions where art work/ journey is developing. This kind of process can be self reflecting and through surprises illuminates new possibilities in myself as well as in art making. 4. JOHN CAGE THE VOYAGER I discovered John Cage, the modern American composer, from people who suggested I to look at his art following a discussion of my ideas on art making and what it means to me. I found many resonances in his way of making art and this awoke an interest in exploring his philosophy further. For John Cage, life and art was not seen as separate from each other and this following quotation clarifies his view on this, “I would not say we are interested in destroying the barrier between art and life, or even blurring it. I would say we are interested in observing that there is no barrier between the two” (Herzogenrath and Kreul, 2002). He approached areas that had previously been considered separate in the Western world, such as art and everyday life, composing sound and random sound and brought them together. He maintained that “art, whether it is good or bad, has a way of changing how we see the world. Oscar Wilde expressed that in one of his bons mots. Nature imitates art” (Brown 2000, 45). This idea unfolds also in the experience of being involved with art, either by making or viewing it. Art can affect the way we see everything else around us. One experience carries the influence to another and this can be seen as interconnectivity, that is, everything is connected and part of each other. John Cage greatly admired Marcel Duchamp who used elements of change in his art. Mark Tobey was also an important influence for him which he referred back to often throughout his life. Dancer Merce Cunningham and artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg were very close friends of John Cage in the 1950’s and onwards, sharing similar ideas about art and influencing and supporting each other (Brown 2000, 48). John Cage inspired people in different fields of art in his own time, poets, writers, musicians, dancers and visual artists. It is fascinating how influence and inspiration can pass from artist to artist, through different times, yet the interests of people stay more or less the same. One view of the Cage’s art is that his fresh approach to the world around him will stay fresh because its essence is fresh. Also, maybe one reason for his power to inspire artists still today is that he touched something with his art what will stay open and changing, and can be adapted to any time and conditions. His art seemed to reach in many directions and where ever he moved with his ideas they grew out as being experimental, exploring widely the possibilities in them in fresh way. His innovative approach to composing and music making, writing and art making reflects the way he perceived the world around him. “Cage’s work proposes an anarchic, radical democratization of all experience, an objectivity that would refocus our attention simply on things as they exist in themselves. Cage’s artistic vision is such vast scope that one feels that it could only have its origin in his notion of the totality of nature” (Herzogenrath and Kreul, 2002). John Cage described a personal revelation he had in the early 1940s after leaving an exhibition of the Tobey’s “white writing” paintings at the Willard Gallery in New York: “I was standing on the corner on Madison Avenue waiting for a bus, and I happened to look at the pavement, and I noticed that the experience of looking at the pavement was the same as the experience of the looking at the Tobey. Exactly the same. The aesthetic enjoyment was just as high”(Cage 1961, 48). This is opening a perspective of seeing the world around us without boundaries, where one concept can melt to become the other. This showing that by staying open and receptive, art can offer views to value more what is around us. A turning point in the life and work of John Cage was his period of studying Zen Buddhism with Japanese scholar Daisetsu T. Suzuki who was teaching in the Columbia University at the time. As a result of his introduction to Eastern forms of philosophical thought, he began to question the role of composer and the place of music in society. He started by using the I Ching (a practice he continued with through out his life), the ancient Chinese book of divination, to incorporate the factor of chance into his musical compositions. His ‘Music of Changes (1951)’ was written entirely by asking questions of the I Ching, using the answers to determine the notes and their duration (Herzogenrath, 2002). Joan Retallack interviewed Cage in the last three years of his life and in one of the interviews he explained about his work with chance operations that he was “shifting from the responsibility to choose to the responsibility to ask”. When Cage was asked about his faithfulness to the answers provided by I Ching Cage said “When I find myself in the position of someone who would change something- at that point I do not change it. I change myself. It is for that reason I have said that instead of self-expression, I’m involved in self-alteration” (Brown 2000, 50). Spontaneity, simplicity, everydayness and paradoxical elusiveness are often words used for describing Zen Buddhism but are equally descriptive of Cage’s art. It is interesting to see how his experimental and radical approach to music making had already the element of change, even without using the I Ching. In a documentary on John Cage, he was explaining about the experience with the musical piece called ‘The Sound piece for Conch Shells with water’. He was describing how the sound made by water moving in a Conch shell was out of his control even if he controlled the movements of the Conch shell, and he said that “the result was, what ever I did, I got something that was not in my mind to get and that leads to a kind of improvisation that results discoveries” (Channel 4, 31.3.1984). For me the beauty in his methods lies in the individual notes and the randomness of the composition. When individuals reserve sounds there is no one single message to be reserved. When music becomes anything or nothing, it becomes open field of sounds to hear what you hear, not what is planned for you to hear. You might focus on delicacy or power of the sound, or silences between, the sound itself becomes an actor rather than melody leading the play. Neville Wakefield echoes the similar view about Cage’s music in the ArtReview, saying that, ”when nothing much is going on in the music of Cage this allows us to carry the experience of listening away from intended orchestration of content”. Adding to that, “Cage asked simply that we pay attention to the random underlay that he regarded as the sonic texture of life” (Wakefield 2005, 69). John Cage’s visual works were primarily made by using watercolour, drawings and printmaking. His prints were made in a Crown Point Press which is located today in San Francisco. Cage was sixty five years old when he started printing at Crown Point Press. Cage would have two weeks of printing a year up until his death fifteen years later. Kathan Brown who invited Cage to the Crown Point Press described Cages approach to making visual art, “Cage’s visual art had no purpose but the visual. In developing it he discovered new forms. They were not a product of his will, instead he discovered them by opening an area of inquiry, as an scientist might do, and pushing that inquiry dispassionately to an extreme” (Brown 2000, 49). Cage worked with visual art in almost the same way he worked with music. “His work does not manipulate the viewer. Nothing tells you how you are expected to react. If it occurs, it can change the way you look at other things besides art by adding a spiritual, or out-of-the-ordinary, dimension that gives pleasure and quiets the minds chatter” (Brown 2000, 122). I found Cage’s print series called ‘HV2’ (Horizontal and Vertical) and ‘Derau’ particularly beautiful and interesting (See Figure 1 and 2). They were described that “each work consists of a large open-ended group of individual smaller works themselves are made up of confederations of images and marks” (Brown 2000, 65). By looking at the HV2, they have the qualities of remembering something, almost whisper like atmosphere. For me, colours and arrangements used are not directly important. The wholesome atmosphere of the abstract image creates the space to feel and experience it. The over all feeling I get from the series of HV2 is that, what I see in it, is not important, but the feeling I get from it is. For me, delicacy of the colours offered the feeling or imagined experience of remembering colours from the dream which do not exist. “Cage’s work essentially is about individuals appearing together in a space, so there is nothing more important to the form of the art than the location of images. Cage located individual images in the relationship to the whole rather than to one another” (Brown 2000, 66). 5. MY WAY IN ART In the area of visual art I have found space to explore and reflect the ideas and feelings which do not necessarily have direct verbal language. The process of making art has offered learning which has broaden my view to move differently than in more analytical or logical processes. Exploration of the visual language involves also reflection in the inner landscapes examining my own view. Some of the Buddhist values which I experienced during my journey in Ladakh seem to be central components in the way I create and interact with my art. My main preoccupation and interest in art making is the effect of change upon nature. By recording changes on different surfaces I have begun a thought process, which has opened up a new avenue for my visual language. My approach to making art is a very significant part of my work. I see it as an organic process, whereby my motives, intentions and ideas will grow like seeds, becoming stronger and more specific over time. Rather than adding another object to the world I concentrate upon the essence of change in nature, letting the material surprise me without trying to control them too much. One needs to be awake to catch the butterfly and wise to let it go without harming it. My work with steel and rusted objects reflects the passing of time and changes in their original form. How the form breaks and becomes something else; transformation takes place. If we were aware of the impermanence of things; that everything will grow to become something else, we are less likely to be clutching our ideas about ourselves, art and the world we live in. At this moment I have been using found objects in my art making and this has developed visual readiness to see and find beauty and inspiring ideas from areas where I did not expect to find them. I have found materials from different places like from scrap-yards, streets and nature. My way of making art has developed gradually towards working with a natural processes rather than starting from intellectual analyses. I find the ever changing ideas and thoughts like separate doors appearing and disappearing. I felt that by following these ideas I would enter to the different rooms and have an area to explore and play in their closed frame. The experience of the process of making has become important for me and it felt to be a broader foundation to grow and approach art. I have done different discoveries of mark making by using natural processes. Using found objects particularly rusted metal objects in printing created marks through embossments and light colour from rust surfaces. Rust on steel, which is created by combination of air and water, reflects the ideas of time and process of change. Using a rusted oil barrel lid showed me how form in its simplest way can express more than complex imagery. Also how object can transform to something so different by finding a new functional possibility for it (See figure 3 and 4). Marks created by fire on steel surfaces opened up ideas of change, transformation and the unexpected. Again it was surprising to see the result of print from the burned and hammered steel plate. Prints became these delicate landscapes created by dynamic almost aggressive process (See figure p.21). These processes have been great learning and truly showing that it is worth experimenting and jumping there where I have not ever been yet. Also, I like the fact that I am using discarded objects and materials which had become to the end of their original functional cycle and that by re-looking at them I can find new functions for them and they can transform to be something completely new. For me, no single statement can replace the beauty of process, which changes the surface of a plate through a series of gradual chemical reactions. The plates become the record of the changing of the seasons and the weather, but they also provoke me to re-think their function, to playfully re-create new possibilities for what is strictly regarded as waste. By considering objects in this way I also show how, in terms of functionality one ending can be another beginning. In the same way my own work can be seen as a continuation of an organic process. Simplicity is very important to me in the composition of my prints. This in turn allows a feeling of silence and space through which I would like to create a resting place for the viewer. I do not want to say anything with my prints, I am interested learning from the process they required. My hope is that the traces of the process can offer interest or feeling for their viewers. By reflecting upon intermediate states, such as the changing function of the barrel lid I am also revealing my own learning. The theories of Buddhism form part of this growth process. Rather than producing work as a result of mental analysis alone I try to use the energy of intuitive action. I attempt to reveal a dialogue between nature and time, rather than an internal personal dialogue, preferring to see myself as a filter whatever the limitations of my view. Experiencing intermediate times and places like in travel, or study time, we are aware of the beginning and the end, but what will happen between, opens up moment by moment. The whole life can be seen as an intermediate state, every moment have its triumph slipping in to the next flowing moment and that eventually ending. Life is always incomplete, everything changing and shifting never quite becoming ready. Experimenting with different natural processes in a frame of printmaking has helped me to reflect philosophical questions and thoughts. In the same way than life has its cycles, also art making has its own ones. It feels going forward but not in a linear way, moving and changing and revealing surprises about myself and world around me. Recently I found concept called ‘Wabi-Sabi’ which is describing the qualities of Japanese aesthetics and much more. According to Leonard Koren, “Wabi-Sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. It is beauty of things unconventional” (Koren 1994, 7). There are many similarities in Wabi-Sabi than in my art making and interests. This just shows how everything is connected. That my values and way of thinking takes me to the direction where other things will open up, like finding John Cage and now Wabi- Sabi. These both link with spiritual influence and Zen Buddhism. This kind of journey of finding and refining could be seen as a journey to the mountain where road turns around the mountain, and higher we get, less we need to go around, we are reaching the peak where all turns are taking us, and from the top we are able to see where we walked and also then we see the opening of the new perspective to the landscape on front of us to explore more. Rainer Maria Rilke’s words about the unexpected found from the nature describes a feeling I have come a cross while moving, either in the nature or in an art making process, ”If you cling to Nature, to the simple in nature, to the little things that hardly anyone sees, and that can so unexpectedly become big and beyond measuring; if you have this love of inconsiderable things and seek quite simply, as one who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier, more coherent and somehow more conciliatory for you, not in your intellect, perhaps, which lags marveling behind, but in your inmost consciousness, waking and cognizance” (Buchanan-Smith 2001). CONCLUSION This moment and these experiences are the intermediate state of going somewhere. In this discussion only the present state of mind and the way of making art is captured. However, this all demonstrates how everything is part of the ever changing cycle. We are surrounded by many mysteries and miracles in the world we are living. According to Physicist Erwin Shrödinger, “Science gives very incomplete idea of the world around us. It offers us many facts and organizes our experiences in to the greatly coherent form, but stays scarily silent of everything what is close to our hearts, that what truly matters to us” (Revel and Ricard, 2000). This shows that we have to search for our own truth. Nothing is ready or steady. Everything is changing and remains open. Moving in the world like this, different philosophies and meetings with people and art can become like a bridge helping the personal journey forward and opening new areas of understanding. I feel that again and again come times of questioning where to go, what things mean, how things are, this means remaining open and learning from all times of life. In the middle of the openness of everything I have to find the way through by following invisible thread which moves like a wind on front of me. To the important feeling of inner freedom I have found support from Buddhist philosophy. For me, it has more truth in it rather than any antithesis. It is something that drives me again to look and search, and it this way releases creative process and awareness of the personal experiences. I would like to finish with the poem written by John Cage in 1973 which has the beauty illuminating the atmosphere of openness of all, “Where to go? Twentieth- century’s everywhere. He sees the night: he listens. He sees as a blind men do. Aerial relationship. Noticing each is free to move in his own way. Breathing. Luminousness. Iridescence.
Earth above. Earth below (K’un K’un): Nature in contrast to spirit, earth contrast to heaven, space against time. Devotion. No combat: completion. The coexistence of the spiritual world and the world of the senses.” ( Herzogenrath and Kreul 2002, 50)
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