“unfinished”

“Recognizing ourselves as unfinished works gives us the feeling of being on a quest. We feel a sense of obligation to become our true selves, and such obligation requires the willingness to take risks. Risk-taking is the root of all our dreams and, because we are winged creatures, we set about transforming illusion into reality. We trust the dream, we trust the purposes of God.” –Margherita Getman

I’ve been thinking about those words, a lot lately, and I’m beginning to see the people around me differently. I’ve also been wondering if the thought of being unfinished leaves me feeling at ease or uncomfortable, is it easier to rest in the fact that I am “unfinished”, that there is still time, or do I wish I had a better grasp on who I am becoming?

Most recently I’ve been straying from my memory series and trying to tackle the idea of “people as unfinished works”. There’s something beautiful in that.

Seraphs

I’ve been thinking, a lot lately, about the Holy. The question was posed “is there anything holy here?”

I just finished the book “holy the firm” by A. Dillard. She described the substance “holy the firm” as:

“being a created substance, lower than metals and minerals on a spiritual scale, and lower than salts and earths, occurring beneath salts and earth in the waxy deepness of planets, but never on the surface. it is in touch with the Absolute at base.”

then i got to thinking about the Polyphemus moth again. she describes a moth being attracted to a flame and then once there burning for many more hours than one would have thought and finally becoming a wick itself to give light into the night.
with it’s body a flame i thought of Seraphs.
the most high of all angels.
Seraphs are said to be perpetually aflame with love for God.

“the Seraphs are born of a stream of fire issuing from under God’s throne. They are all wings, having six, two of which they fold over their eyes. Moving perpetually toward God, they perpetually praise Him, crying Holy, Holy, Holy…but, according to some rabbinic writings, they can sing only the first “holy” before the intensity of their love ignites them again and dissolves them again, perpetually, into flames.”

What do their wings look like?
Do they have the eyes of the Polyphemus moth?
How long do they give off light of the Holy fire?
As the moth is attracted to the the candle’s glow and ignited, perpetually aflame, is the Seraph attracted to God?
and then we go back “is there anything holy here?

polyphemus moth

I am part-way through a series of paintings based on Annie Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” and I have come to a chapter entitled “The Fixed”. As always I begin each painting by re-reading the chapter, extracting significant themes, researching them further and then finally applying personal significance and tone. This has been a very challenging quest full of artistic doubt and the feeling of inadequately representing something so beautifully abstract.

So, as I said I have begun re-reading “The Fixed” (chapter 4) which will become my fifth painting in the series and I read a segment on this polyphemus moth. The story is from Dillard’s primary school, where a student brought a polyphemus moth cocoon in to show the class. The teacher allows the students to pass the cocoon around the room and the warmth of their hands triggers it to shed it’s layers mid-january. It’s a gut wrenching depiction of something that never got to fully be:

“The whole cocoon twisted and slapped around in the bottom of the jar. The teacher fades, the classmates fade, I fade: I don’t remember anything but that thing’s struggle to be a moth or die trying. It emerged at last, a sodden crumple. It was a male; his antennae were thickly plumed, as wide as his fat abdomen. –He stood still, but he breathed.
He couldn’t spread his wings. There was no room. The chemical that coated his wings like varnish, stiffening them permanently, dried, and hardened his wings as they were. He was a monster in a Mason Jar. Those huge wings stuck on his back in torture of random pleats and folds, wrinkled as a dirty tissue, rigid as leather. They made a single nightmare clump still wracked with useless, frantic convulsions.”

It is this image of a beautiful moth that had to go through life maimed on “six furred feet forever” that I can’t quite shake. So I’m left with the question, how will I paint this; the “monster in the mason Jar”, his “hardened wings” and the the feeling of watching something get stuck forever?

The Beginning…

I grew up in a house where my mother was constantly reminding me of my peculiar habits when I was a little girl. Often my personal necessitates came at the cost of her comfort and needs, most notably sleep. When I was young, I didn’t need very much sleep so quite frequently I would wake up in the middle of the night and instead of reading a story I wanted my mother to sit with me on my bedroom carpet and sort pop beads by color. Now I can’t honestly say what I was thinking during these nightly impulses however I have a hunch that I was mesmerized by the colors, touching them, sorting them, making patterns, choosing where they needed to be in order to be the most beautiful.

For me, it’s always been about colors, in all of my pursuits I’m fascinated by the abstract nature of color. I love to understand the complexity of how we see colors and when we arrange them in certain ways they transform and become new. Colors give us the ability to express ourselves where words fall short. It wasn’t until much later that I was sure I wanted to arrange colors every day. My meanings develop, my passions are fed, my beliefs are fanned but the common thread is that I will never get tired of choosing colors to express all these things.

I received my BA in studio art from the University of Iowa in December of 2007 and currently teach elementary art in the Pleasant Valley Schools. Art has become my way of questioning the world and my hope is that along the way I’m helping children question their worlds.

Check my art work out at alikirsch.com