Volume 1. Chapter 11. Orientations

Companions

Two may coincide; two may converge or diverge; two may combine. Two may cross paths; Two may come from one, or two may become one. Drama is in not knowing the path before them but feeling its importance.

A body

A body may exist like a kitten in a box or an embryo newly conceived that nobody yet knows about. The artist has means of sharing inside knowledge, both seen and unseen.

Perspective

The artist cannot make a three-dimensional space with a pen or brush, so fakes distance and depth using tricks of perspective to tease the mind.

Logical deviations

Deviations from strict construction cannot be random. A logical process must transform expectations to create a subjective reality.

Eye level

The horizontal assumes you face the image and your face is vertical. The vertical is the shortest distance from you to the horizon. If you tilt or turn, then these assumptions aren’t literally true, but it’s still inevitable that the horizontal and vertical organize your view.

Synthesis

Break the rules when it makes sense because circumstances are always too complicated for explanation, but only when the result becomes a satisfying harmony.

Deviations

In reality, things move. In reality, our point of view shifts as we shift. In reality, the hidden sides are visible from the back. In reality, all the parts are intimately connected, even if they appear disjoint. But blink; but turn your head. Movement is the key to discovery.

Essence and appearance

Both essences and appearances affect us. A building on the town square has its purpose and architecture, as well as having a toilet in an accidental location. Sewer, water, and gas pipes lie under the bricks and must be rediscovered as the building is renovated.

Viewpoint

An alley cat’s supposed to eat rats, not pigeons, but it’s allowed to break the rules. It prefers the night. It hunts alone. Garbage and dark holes attract its interest. The city from its perspective, is reversed from ours, since the street’s dangerous and the alley’s a haven.

Arabian city

Buildings in an Arabian city are not laid out in a grid. To say the roofs and lanes follow their topologies and histories should not be to assume any logic or pattern. An idea of organic necessity would be irresponsibly romantic. The city has achieved an equilibrium between public needs, neighborhoods, and families that would defy any attempt to alter the way it continues to change.