And yet, at times like these, one is drawn to the artist's frame of mind. Somehow, the artist has to be part of the milieu for any truthful, simple, direct, honest depiction (which eventually leads to the some of the best works I guess), and yet has to be outside it. One can almost imagine the artist there, in the middle of that chaos of fragments of conversations, of different kinds of people, of different kind of things, each claiming some part of the sensory attention scale. And yet, the artist needs to have the ability to be outside it all, seeing it all, taking it all, seeing it to its true essence, to its core and then take simple, direct, honest notes.
Such art works are interesting in themselves, but sometimes all the more interesting for the channels they open to an artistic solitude. The being in it and beyond it all.
The un-selfconscious, natural solitude. The being in the space that art opens up, in the world, yet not of this world. The milling around of folks, words, things, yet, yet, yet, the concenterated gaze of holding another world in your eyes and taking notes in it or may be, from it. As if that world were a notebook and you are transcribing this world in it. One almost, almost feels with the artist. Gazing at the market. Setting up his paints. Observing. Seeing. Noting.
The attending to the essence of things to the surface of things. And noting from the surface of things to the essence of things. (The artistic ideal. The delivery is human, skill, practice, time, wherewithals, quality of attending)
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Perhaps anyone aspiring to any simple craft, art, esp those of brush and pen, where there is a noting of reality, an attendance to what is real, what is most real to a person, and then an honest effort at its noting. That is what LDV practiced. The honest note-taking. The learning from nature. And yet the seeing requires being part of reality. Being in that place and in that time.
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Here is the artwork referred. A mural by Desiderio Hernández Xochitiotzin
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