artcrop series # 2 - drawing project

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contorted hazel

workphoto 002

constructed cuff

". . . the idea of nonfiction is paucity in plain view . . ."

Reality is too difficult to sustain full on. It is too big, too present, too lonely, too beautiful . . . in sum, too much, too meaningless. Even though we seek to know and feel it from time to time, it is unbearable to live with. Therefore, there is a need within common life to allow one’s self to be persuaded by (even a need to deliberately create) some form of living-fiction. However, reality’s dictates, especially psychological and inter-personal, are always present. They can no more be postponed than eating and breathing. Nothing is resolved on its own. Nothing comes without being paid for. The question becomes one of how much we can borrow . . . and for how long. This does not imply a difference between our desires and the limitations imposed upon us by reality. Rather, the difference exists most poignantly within. Reality is the other pole of freedom, it is what constructs our loop of consciousness within the world. When our personal myth diverges too much, we are forced back in line. If we resist we are eventually made to suffer the required penalty. One of the great stories of our shared experience is rooted in the opposition of realty and fiction. All stories are underpinned by the clash between the differences between characters (a clash of the unreal), and negotiations required by the living out of daily life within our limited opening upon reality (what has ultimately been described as Dasein). How much room is there for us to inhabit? What happens when we hit and push against its/our shared limit? How does the failure of our invention impact our life over time? How are we defined . . . what do we experience when reality fights back and tells us who we are in the face of who we want to be.

webphoto 032

framing a couple of birch trees in Grand Metis, Quebec
a project by architect Hal Ingberg
photo by Robert Baronet