What does it mean to be and then erode from being? How might tangerines, fig spreads or cut flowers, in some way, preserve life simply by remaining? Does their erosion indicate a peak of existence, a moment when their life energy is optimal; optimal for who?
Vessels represent the transience of emptiness — what is inside, what is outside. Is it a vessel when it holds nothing?
What is a glass container but a liquid that shall be melted down into a puddle? When does it stop being a bowl, a jar, or a vase? Where is the liquified vessel when it is formed into a sculpture of a hand (cupped open like a vessel) holding, perchance, local cut flowers, a jar of Provence fig spread, or a Satsuma mandarin.
The above piece, "Still, Life Without You 19" completes my Project 116 of Mendelowitz's Guide To Drawing 3rd Edition using digital pencil, smudge, and liquify.
"In the cessation of craving, we touch that dimension of experience that is timeless: the playful, unimpeded contingency of things emerging from conditions only to become conditions for something else. This is emptiness: not a common vacuum but the unborn, undying, and infinitely creative dimension of life [emphasis added]. It is known as the “womb of awakening”; it is the clearing in the still center of becoming, the track on which a centered person moves. And whispers: “Realize Me.” —Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor
Song: Without You | Original Broadway Cast of Rent
Drawing Innards Dreamt
Still, Life Without You–19
