Dear RR

"Art is the evolution of human perception made real. And like a science, art's expanding pyridine is objectively proven by concretizing the image at the high ark of its logical absurdity*. Between these moments of measure* occurs a flurry as if in reverse, as if building an entire pyramid under its waiting eye-stone." - Comrade-X

I am my only authority when in The Image Nation. We, you and I are the Gunslingers in the outer territories, we are the Law. The way that you arrived at those images interests me only so far as my natural inking backtracks towards arriving at the-high-ark-of-its-logical-absurdity. I am a Worker, like your self, so the "how" is only important in the question: "Is every aspect (absolute) necessary, and did your Skill cover its tracks." These aspects for me were immediately satisfied by the narrative paging of your multiple Images. I don't really care how the laymen perceive what we do. The laymen asks as a defense-mech to reduce your Vision to their scale of denial. I-AM the standard of Consciousness, me-joey, at a certain groking of awareness I-AM is god, and all things are equal. And if just one other trusted awareness, (your witness), say, "YES!" to your work, then everything below the Rautakausi really is …just mud and shit (old Sanyasi proverb).

From one YES to another, I …felt… your list (book) of images as no less then …Wow! And …"I better get back to Work," (this last voice is always the one that really tells me when I am in the presence of The Dialogue).

Next time some laymen asks you how you did it, you should tell her that you paid the fucking photo-fairies hard cash and three pints of lymph fluids to do them for you, or … if you are feeling kind, you could say "Well …I started these Images by taking a breath 51 years ago and then ..."

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"Art is a therapy but not meant to be used as therapy. Let the art come first and your psychology will follow. Spit in the hole and head for the light." - Comrade-X

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leets !

Hello pal.

It's Hearting to hear that you are living-up in the Work.
You are definitely a One, (marked for life, an all-or-nothing player, an admirable failure), and after all my years in it, I still feel an edge of pity for all you must go through to live the Work, even though… "It is the most wonderful life on earth. Or so I feel!" -eec

Be sure to invite us to any open sessions that you present. You know I want to throw all sorts of encouragements and advise at you, even though I know how useless such is, seeing that the core of the Work is experience in perception. Your experience. And really all we (tree-me+) can provide are Hurrahs!

Hurray!

I feel - I dream - I pay close Attention - I meditate - I think - I decide - and I perform …an art. This is my job. This is your job. And despite the world I will not apologize for having aspired towards it. It is my job to do all these things fully and report what I discover to my beloved (despite its self) humanity.
I am a scout of perception. That's my job and glad for the work.
We are Potentiatitors of Observations = Direct Observations. We gather willingness and give it direction toward experience. It is a job given to us by "Inner-Necessity" (and I have yet to hear a better name for God then that [says Toc the atheist]).

"There are exactly as many Gods as you have time to notice, and no two Gods are ever alike." -Comrade-X

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So … here is a performance lecture I witnessed once upon a time. It is by one of my chosen mentors (Agnes Martin).
I'm still a kid (22). I'm sitting in a small room with maybe 20 other art(s) -students at a very experimental university (that no longer exists). The year is 1975 and my 7 month old son is on my lap, content, and there is an easy waiting among us. The kid (Jyothi) is passed around, happily.
Then… in comes an old Navaho women, traditional blue squash-blossom dress and white blouse. She stands quiet for long minutes looking at the floor in front of her feet holding a white scarf. The room is solid with silence. Then she looks up at us, as clear as slow-water and says the following exact words all from her memory.

"Through our work truth enters into ignorance and ignorance is dissolved. The struggle between truth and ignorance takes place in the mind of the worker. There is pain and suffering as a result of this conflict. When ignorance gives way to truth there is clarity and joy.

We face life and work in total ignorance. We do not know what to expect or what to do. We wish fervently that we can know what to do and how to do it. It is our most fervent wish. With this wish we invite truth into our minds and there it encounters ignorance, and the conflict begins-the struggle and the pain. It is extremely hard to keep moving forward. It is possible to give up the struggle and the pain. Then one moves backward. Moving backward one becomes less aware, less enthusiastic, less energetic. There is physical deterioration and more selfishness. A fervent wish to know what one is born to do, a wish to live a true life, a close watch on one's own mind in order to see the steps that need to be taken, and of course to take them, is the path of life on which we move ahead. Everything other than this is negative and meaningless.

On the path of life we ask what to do. We do not really invite truth into our minds because the truth is already there. The truth is pervasive. What we really want is to become conscious of the truth. We ask our own minds what to do. When ignorance which is also in our minds is overcome by truth, we have a moment of clarity and very suddenly we know what to do. If we carry out the instructions that come to us in moments of clarity, our actions are effective. They are responded to by others, and they are recognized as positive. Sometimes works done on very clear instructions and after a great struggle turn out to be empty or useless. This is very disconcerting. The instructions from our minds are as though to a child that doesn't know the language. We perceive what we do want by seeing what we do not want. Work that seems empty and useless is guided and meant to be and is more valuable in moving forward than satisfying work.

Even with truth in our minds we will go far beyond a few disappointments. We will find ourselves facing the work with very strong feelings of defeat, despair, hopelessness and even lack of desire. All of these with exhaustion added are necessary to defeat ego, vanity, and pride so that truth may be represented rather than personal vanity. To express truth, to contribute to happiness, or to create something beautiful the path begins beyond defeat and despair. This is not as depressing as it sounds, for in defeat and despair we can say to ourselves, this is not the end but the beginning, and we can look back and see how often this has been true. Work begins with a feeling of compulsion. Then we wonder what we are to do. This is followed by a surge of energy. And we become fervent in a wish to know what to do. While ignorance holds the advantage we are faced with a multiplicity of choices. Our minds struggle. We think we are struggling to "make up our minds, to come to a decision. But the struggle is in reality the next true step to be taken breaking through the barrier of ignorance. When the truth of what we must do reaches consciousness, there is no choice. One has to do what one has to do, and the whole fervent wish is now for accuracy. I would like to point out that compulsive action is in acceptance of the first choice while ignorance still holds the field. Serious contemplation which excludes all intellectual activity is necessary to the uncovering of truth in our work. The intellect must still be held in check till we discover exactly how we must do that which we must do. There is only the one way, the narrow way, the razors edge. While we believe it can be this or that, this way or that way, that is not it. It will be negative and ineffective. The work must be rendered into some form that can be responded to by others in order to become a part of reality. Uncompleted work is fantasy and leads to sterility of mind. The work of caring for children of home making, of growing potatoes, of being president, even ditch diggers can be creative. It is creative if it is responded to with happiness. If it is responded to with happiness, it can be called positive. It is in this way that positive work enters reality and lasts forever. When we see the truth we call it beauty. When we feel the truth we call it happiness. Truth experienced is justice, benevolence, and consolation. All positive expressions represent truth.

In works of art our most joyful, subtle, and tender feelings are represented. These feelings are universal and do not change. It is very serious misrepresentation to say that art represents culture. True art work is responded to by people of all cultures in exactly the same way. Consider the pyramids, Ming pottery, German music, Greek architecture. Many people are attracted to the life that artists live because it is unconventional, but they do not involve themselves with the truth, so of course they are not artists. An artist is not just someone who works with art media. It is someone who recognizes his most positive feelings and longs to represent them accurately and concretely so that they can be recognized by others. By positive feelings is meant knowing happiness-a real grasp of ever-lasting happiness and beauty must be his aim.

Intellectual activity is directed toward concrete evidence. It is comparison, deduction, calculation, and discrimination. The end products are ideas, concepts, even prejudices. The intellectual process is anathema to art work which depends on direct response and acceptance without any thought whatsoever. One does not go to the seashore to think. It is thinking more than anything else that precludes perception. It is quite a common practice to go on thinking to the point of exhaustion, at which time one gives up thinking and the truth penetrates our minds. In art work even with an intellectual approach, if it is pursued beyond exhaustion in one application one suddenly sees what must be. Another dodge around intellectual activity is to sleep and wake up with the solution. By far the best solution is mental control by meditation, that is, by watching one's mind and having a desirable mental condition. Alcohol and drugs are of course not a solution; thought they sometimes stop intellectual activity, they substitute fantasies that are dangerously misleading. To be in a desirable mental condition is the work, is truth through ignorance, is consciousness of one's true course, is consciousness of what one must do according to one's potential, is consciousness of one's unfolding life, and is happiness as a result. The truth that you will perceive in a healthy mind applies only to you. Other peoples' ideas and philosophies are not the truth for you. The truth is not an idea beyond all other ideas. It is not an idea at all. It is an experience. It is seeing beauty and being truly happy. I say truly because there is a lot of mistaken excitement. The translation of the truth as it is revealed to an individual into precepts and standards becomes a part of ignorance. The truth in any regard is available to us on a request to our minds. We cannot help each other.

The intellect battles overtly as well as in the mind. When we are working we are presented with the idea that we should be doing something else. If intellect can get us going, we will soon be thinking about right and wrong, gain and loss, victory and defeat, about our friends and neighbors', or politics. Like an indulgent mother, the intellect defends our weaknesses, bringing self-pity self-defense and an endless amount of complaint and accusation of others. It also presents outrageous fears and convinces many that security, though it is not possible, is the goal of life. The intellect is best discovered by the multiplicity of its suggestions, saying you can do this or that, but also because it circles. The same thoughts go round and round. We must not blame ourselves for the activities of intellect, but we must recognize them and not listen in order to move forward. Fortunately, in serious crises a very large group of people do not depend on intellect for guidance, but seriously seek for the truth with regard to what they should do. In this way the world is rapidly moving forward. They ask for the truth, it enters their work, it is recognized by others, life moves forward to greater awareness of happiness. Life does not move ahead due to the work of a few geniuses as is generally believed, but due to the positive wishes of all those who have faith in life. There are several groups who do not have faith in life but rather faith in themselves: idealists, who believe in living by preconceived patterns, traditionalists, who believe in living by knowledge from the past. There are also those who pursue false goals: the avaricious, those with money as a primary aim, the power seekers, those who wish to lead and influence others the show-offs, those whose actions are directed toward preconceived results Idealists fail because reality is infinite. It is infinite space, infinite time, and also infinite possibility. Direct action such as suggested by idealists moves from this to that infinitely, but not forward. Idealism is the illusion. Idealism precludes freedom of mind. Living by preconceived patterns is conformity, not freedom of mind. Power seeking, avarice, and showing off are all calculated ways of living, holding the mind in captivity. I have known quite a number of artist who have thrown off all these negative attitudes, who have given up ideas about work who have given up ideas of power who have given up thinking of money who have given up thinking of fame who in fact surrendered to defeat and helplessness and managed to hang on till the work was completed. The work was then received into a gallery and received recognition and satisfactory sales-everything they had ever wanted, but they chose not to go on. The reason of their reluctance is that defeat and helplessness are so very hard to bear. An artist who wishes to continue in the work must maintain a low standard of living. If one enters into the jaunty self-confident attitude and physical comfort; of the materialist, the state of mind necessary for creativity is out of sight.

We can see how the discriminating mind and the calculating mind make us captive of circumstances. What we want to see is how the other, the truth seeking mind makes us free. There are two parts of our minds. One part watches the other. Many people feel as though they are being watched from outside, but it-is your own mind that watches you. It watches all of our actions. When we ask for the truth and the watcher watches our minds very carefully, ideas and memories do not surface in the mind. As truth struggles through these ideas and memories the struggle is felt; it is not seen. And the victory is felt with joy when the truth is realized. The truth always wins the struggle. Our minds merely watch the process. It is like an always available gift. We can know what to do. We can know beauty. We can know happiness without any effort, just to wait, just to receive, that is freedom of mind."

Pow huh?