One of my favorite paintings will be en route to Texas this week: the big blue and green one in the center, which usually hangs on my dining room wall. Yes, in a way I’m sad to see it go. On the other hand, it’s moving is the reason I create. This painting will appropriately rest on the wall in a psychologist's office. Though it will not physically move, I hope it will continue to spiritually move those who also find a safe place in it.
Here are a few beautiful words from Lewis Hyde’s book ,The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, which I started reading over the holiday break:
“A gift that cannot move loses its gift properties.”
The gift as a constantly flowing river:
“When someone tries to dam up the river, one of two things will happen: either it will stagnate or it will fill the person up until he bursts.”
“A market exchange has an equilibrium or stasis: you pay to balance the scale. But when you give a gift there is momentum, and the weight shifts from body to body.”
“The only essential is this: the gift must move.”In his book Mr. Hyde tells why the term “Indian Giver” exists. Before the white man, the Indians would pass the peace pipe from village to village. It was a gift that kept moving. When the white man came and smoked with the Indian, the Indian gave the pipe to the white man. The white man thought, Ooo…this will look splendid in our Field Museum and took the pipe out of circulation. When the Indians realized the pipe was no longer going to move, they went to the white man and asked for it back. Sadly, the white man thought it was better to possess, or consume the pipe than to participate in the gift exchange: he called them “Indian Givers”. Mr. Hyde then flips the term on its side, suggesting the terms “’white man keeper’ (or maybe ‘capitalist’), that is, a person whose instinct is to remove property from circulation….”
Though money was given for my painting, the exchange was experienced as a gift. I did not possess my own hand or brush the night this painting magically came together. This painting was given to me as a gift. And now that gift is appropriately on the move.
Here are a few beautiful words from Lewis Hyde’s book ,The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, which I started reading over the holiday break:
“A gift that cannot move loses its gift properties.”
The gift as a constantly flowing river:
“When someone tries to dam up the river, one of two things will happen: either it will stagnate or it will fill the person up until he bursts.”
“A market exchange has an equilibrium or stasis: you pay to balance the scale. But when you give a gift there is momentum, and the weight shifts from body to body.”
“The only essential is this: the gift must move.”In his book Mr. Hyde tells why the term “Indian Giver” exists. Before the white man, the Indians would pass the peace pipe from village to village. It was a gift that kept moving. When the white man came and smoked with the Indian, the Indian gave the pipe to the white man. The white man thought, Ooo…this will look splendid in our Field Museum and took the pipe out of circulation. When the Indians realized the pipe was no longer going to move, they went to the white man and asked for it back. Sadly, the white man thought it was better to possess, or consume the pipe than to participate in the gift exchange: he called them “Indian Givers”. Mr. Hyde then flips the term on its side, suggesting the terms “’white man keeper’ (or maybe ‘capitalist’), that is, a person whose instinct is to remove property from circulation….”
Though money was given for my painting, the exchange was experienced as a gift. I did not possess my own hand or brush the night this painting magically came together. This painting was given to me as a gift. And now that gift is appropriately on the move.
(Yes, I intentionally stacked up most of my paintings for the above photo. I like seeing them all together, quietly (or not so quietly) representing an emotional army of me. They were painted between 1995 and as recently as yesterday.)
2 comments:
Did I mention that I bought that book after Doug recommended it in Jamaica? Am sorry to say, but I got a little bored with some of it. Maybe I need to try to read it again.
Cool picture with most of your paintings!
I love the picture of your paintings stacked together -- so cool. And, I love your speaking about the movement of gifts. Actually, that may also be the basis for an integris capitalist society--the creation & selling of goods/services and payment for those goods/services creates a balance, a harmony, and a movement as long as both parties are served through the transaction.
I also love that Safe Place is coming to Houston to be enjoyed by all who see and experience it.
K
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