For some reason, the videos on the site won’t consistently load now. I’m going to have to investigate it tomorrow.

It does, however, fortuitously relieve me of an anxiety I had about tonight’s post. Let’s start here : Art does not provide answers. If anything – if anything – art proposes questions, perspectives, new ways of perceiving. It is not a language, sometimes not even a symbolic language. It does not have to signify anything.

For example: What does the figure 5 mean in Charles Demuth’s I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold? You might say “Oh, he took it from a poem; he visualised and painted a poem by his friend William Carlos Williams”. There you go. But what does it mean? Why would WCW use the number 5? Because he saw it on a fire engine. There you go. But. . . are you sure? What might the number 5 mean to WCW or to Demuth? Or between them? Nothing? Something? In poetry, everything means something. When you’re painting with words, every comma is important, every line break or blank space signifies something.

My point is, when I’m creating something, I always worry that it will be misinterpreted, that people will say : “Oh, he meant this. . . ” when, indeed, I meant something else, perhaps something personal, private, that no one else knows. When I create something, it is demanding to be created. I have some control, but I’m also winging it, putting elements together that happen to arrive to me, spontaneously. Like unexpected guests. They resonate. They ring the doorbell and demand a room. They may or may not signify anything.

Thanks to my friend for providing me with the inspiration for this evening’s post. Skip the video happily. It was a synchronistic event, a guest urging us to take more time to look out of our windows.

Rome, sunrise, 20 December 2022

P.S. Remind me to talk about time one day. . . how we walk into the future backwards. And more about duality. And how our love is like a fingerprint.