Simplicity (Llanesa)

My three blogs (http://vahezen.blogspot.com, http://liveingray.blogspot.com and http://vaheark.blogspot.com) have been read by more than 50,000 readers from around the globe. I often get email, in multiple languages, with comments or reactions.

My recent posting (http://vaheark.blogspot.com/2018/03/arizona-floor-lamp.html) triggered the curiosity of some readers who share my appreciation of using natural materials for artistic expression. But one email I got seemed to encapsulate my favorite artistic (and life) attitude, be that in essays, photography or sculpture.

Indeed, a reader from Argentina (name unidentified) wrote:

 “your sculpture and paintings are in line with the Magic Realism genre that we in Latin America appreciate.”

Wow. This visitor of my blog is correct – I do have a penchant toward that genre and my favorite author is Jorge Luis Borges.

So, to stress the point made in that email, here is a simple “sculpture” I keep on my work table.

When I found these two cow vertebrae after coyotes had cleaned every part of the animal, the two were sitting atop the desert sand in this exact position.

I immediately saw a phantasmagoric figure (magic realism?) of a humanoid smiling at me as if saying "take me with you."

So, I did. I just enhanced what I saw with a couple of turquoise stones for eyes, a few lines with oil paint, and a hare tail en guise of hair.

To me, that is pure simplicity. And my favorite poem by Borges, also called Simplicity has these lines:

 It opens, the gate to the garden
with the docility of a page
that frequent devotion questions
and inside, my gaze
has no need to fix on objects
that already exist, exact, in memory.

 I think it reads better in its original language:

Se abre la verja del jardín
con la docilidad de la página
que una frecuente devoción interroga
y adentro las miradas
no precisan fijarse en los objetos
que ya están cabalmente en la memoria.

I hope the email sender from Argentina reads this entry and accepts it as my delighted thanks.

March 11, 2018

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2018