On April 10, 11, and 12 I took a course at The Shambhala Meditation Center in Chicago titled Consciousness, Compassion, and Transcendence which was taught by Jeremy Hayward. I was inspired by his first talk on Friday night when he talked about the principles that Buddhism and Science have in common, I thought these principles also applied to art. This blog entry is structured based on his talk and his comments on science and Buddhism. I’ve added my thoughts on art to each of his points.
Science, Buddhism and Art are based in questioning. They are based in a longing which is fundamental in humanity. This longing seeks the truth, but these three disciplines look for the truth in different yet complimentary ways. They have the following in common:
Art, Science and Buddhism are:
based on experiment not faith.
In science the hypothesis and experiment are fundamental. In Buddhism the practitioner learns by trying and doing and is not expected to believe anything that he or she cannot experience. In both of these practices dogmatism is out of place, but it is unfortunately often present in science and occasionally Buddhism.
In the case of art, experiment and faith converge. The artist is like a scientist performing experiments without a hypothesis. The studio is like a crazy lab or strange and wonderful manifestation of these experiments. The artist also has faith in his or herself. Her ability to know without knowing, from an intuitive place, which of the experiments are a true expression is essential. Not all experiments should make it out of the studio. Only some of the experiments create their own momentum within the studio and begin to drive the sequential experiments. This making is genuine. This is making without knowing. Once the artist sees what the outcome will be, the rest of the process is labor, just work to complete the piece.
Dogma also has no place in art. The “what is and isn’t art” argument should by now have reached the end of its rope. On the other hand art is not nihilistic. Art is not anything, but anything can become art.
aware of a disharmony between appearance and reality.
Science and Buddhism are both seeking a truth that is obscured by our limited faculties. The scientist is looking for fundamental principles and building blocks of the universe. The meditation practitioner is using meditation to experience without the duality of self and other prevalent in our consciousness.
The artist is also confronted by and confronting this disharmony. It is apparent when a student is learning to draw from observation like in my class at Wright College. The mind obscures what we see with assumptions and language, which is an obstacle to true observation. I see teaching students to draw from observation as a task of unlearning and letting go.
Artists are free to explore and manipulate the disharmony between appearance and reality. Artists include interpretive, emotional, and chaotic elements in their work to express a personal reality often clouded by disharmony. The disharmony between appearance and reality can be used a life long muse for artists inspiring works that are personally expressive and yet collectively appreciated.
recognizing the problem of the observer.
Scientists know that they as the experimenter are effecting the experiment and try to eliminate themselves from the experiment. Buddhists experiment on themselves, and know that the human mind is non-dualistic in nature, but that it expresses itself as dualistic in most situations, which creates an observer experience.
Artists are constantly working with and against the observer. I my own practice I’ve struggled with and have now come to rest in a confident place with the observer. In the past varied contrived observers would manifest in my mind like a multiple personality disorder and judge my work as I created it in my studio. “What would my mom think of this? My grandpa? My old professor? What would my peers say about it in a critique? Will galleries like it? Will someone want to buy this? Why do people buy art?….” I think the voices have both quieted and unified into a steady confidence. This took a while to happen and grad school helped this process. I took risks in grad school and was rewarded by the outcome of each one. I also think my meditation practice has helped. Its not that the observers have gone away, they remain an important team in my making. The more I realize that my art and my making are not about me, the easier it has been to work with the observer. Without the pressure of the self and a mandate of self expression the observer and the observed can merge.
concerned with cause and effect.
Science sees cause and effect as a linear progression because science has a concept of time. Buddhists see cause and effect as a network if interrelationships (karma).
On this topic the young artist unfortunately shares more with the scientist. I remember talking to a freshman at Alfred at the end of his freshman year about his next endeavors. He was very swept up with idea of creating a “body of work,” and was setting about this task as though he was writing a history book. I recommended that he make what he want without regard for a “body of work” and let some art historian or critic figure it out and “make sense of it all.” This approach to making saddens me when the artist is not aware of what he or she is participating in. This linear approach to making is structured not for the artist but for the marketplace and collector. It makes buying this artist’s work seem like they are buying into a greater plan, something that has already happened which mimics the post-mortum sale of an artist’s work. This also helps the galleries sell the work because it mimics selling a brand, not something messy and unpredictable like art. I think this type of making and buying is not genuine and is based on a construct that is not only out dated, but probably was never beneficial to either party. This linear construct of making and selling work implies that the artist is too wild and should be corralled and that collector is unable to buy what he or she likes.
Making should be open. The work of an artist will inevitably create some kind of body of work which will be deeper and more enriched without the addition of a linear construct. During my graduate studies I had to present my work in a one hour slide talk. Preparing for this talk was the first time I ever saw all my work together on a large light box. As I moved the work around I realized I had to begin my talk with work I did during high school because it was still relevant conceptually to the work I was pursuing in grad school, and is even still relevant now. This was a wonderful discovery, not a plan. The work should always be about discovery both for the maker and the viewer.
improving the human condition.
Buddhism is really driven by this. First you start with improving yourself, but your motivation is to get it together so you can help others. Science helps humanity, but only incidentally, its main focus is on phenomena, and if this results in atomic bombs or revolutionary medicine, the motivation was the same.
Talking about art improving the human cond
ition is complex for me. Art as it is now, sequestered to its museums and galleries is hard to see has helping humanity. I say this as a “fine artist” working within the system of galleries and museums. This sequestered world is my world, for better or worse. However, I suggest that art does improve the human condition. The experience of the viewer, unaltered the dogma of history or criticism can be a genuine in the moment experience. Many viewers are separated from this experience because of the museum or gallery experience. They don’t feel they have the authority to view and experience the art on their own terms, but when they can be reunited with their own curiosity the viewing experience can be wonderful.
