Heidegger uses the metaphors of the forest, the forest path (Holzweg) and the clearing (Lichtung) for "Being", through which one must make a hazardous journey off the beaten track and beyond the boundaries of the familiar (Holzweg) to gain insight. The actual existing "being" is not the fundamental Being (the forest) but the way it appears to us (as a clearing).
Holzweg implies not only a natural path through the woods but also the darkness of the forest and one's ability to lose one's way in it. Being lost on a Holzweg is like being on a "wild goose chase."
Holzweg can refer to the space cleared by foresters to allow a tree to fall unrestrictedly to the ground. It may also be the path created as the cutting of trees progresses ever more deeply into the woods. In both cases, a Holzweg is a "path to nowhere".
In the beginning, the experience of following a Holzweg does not entail thinking one is lost at all. Eventually, one finds oneself in unexpected places...having several paths to choose from but not knowing which if any will lead one back to familiar ground.
Holzweg is distinct from Feldwege (a path to the field).
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Artist Statement
My Work focuses on the connection between creative process and spiritual inquiry.
I paint with my hands. I like the direct, intimate contact of my fingers in the paint, on the canvas. My painting practice is about transformation: turning an organic substance into atmosphere and light, the visible growing beyond itself, extending into the realm of the invisible, paradoxically becoming clear.
For me, painting is both a somatic and an intuitive process. I'm moving without a map, yet my impulse is toward stillness. An image develops, lingers, recedes in a meditative space as I work with it. I am concentrating on the activity of doing rather than on what is done.
Some works focus on differing qualities of painted light: the light 'just now'; the light that reflects, tricks, draws one towards it; absent light, the pull of the dark. I use light to find my way through architectural space that is both invented and found.
Other works explore Taoist, Buddhist and Hindu spiritual traditions of being open to receiving the unexpected, acceptance of the way things are, and the inter-relatedness of destruction and creation. I am inspired by Buddhist Thangka painting, which serves as a record of and guide for contemplative experience; Taras, which are gateways to states of mind; and Taoist Tings- cauldrons used to obtain nourishment for spiritual use.
Like painting, the Ting itself is affected by the mutability of conditions as transient contents move through it.
"The function of objects is to restore silence." Samuel Beckett
I paint with my hands. I like the direct, intimate contact of my fingers in the paint, on the canvas. My painting practice is about transformation: turning an organic substance into atmosphere and light, the visible growing beyond itself, extending into the realm of the invisible, paradoxically becoming clear.
For me, painting is both a somatic and an intuitive process. I'm moving without a map, yet my impulse is toward stillness. An image develops, lingers, recedes in a meditative space as I work with it. I am concentrating on the activity of doing rather than on what is done.
Some works focus on differing qualities of painted light: the light 'just now'; the light that reflects, tricks, draws one towards it; absent light, the pull of the dark. I use light to find my way through architectural space that is both invented and found.
Other works explore Taoist, Buddhist and Hindu spiritual traditions of being open to receiving the unexpected, acceptance of the way things are, and the inter-relatedness of destruction and creation. I am inspired by Buddhist Thangka painting, which serves as a record of and guide for contemplative experience; Taras, which are gateways to states of mind; and Taoist Tings- cauldrons used to obtain nourishment for spiritual use.
Like painting, the Ting itself is affected by the mutability of conditions as transient contents move through it.
"The function of objects is to restore silence." Samuel Beckett
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