Echoes of Time— At Principle Gallery
What an abyss of uncertainty, whenever the mind feels overtaken by itself; when it, the seeker, is at the same time the dark region through which it must go seeking and where all its equipment will avail it nothing. Seek? More than that: create. It is face to face with something which does not yet exist, which it alone can make actual, which it alone can bring into the light of day.
—Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time: Swann’s Way
While the passage above from Proust refers to trying to recall a vague and distant memory brought on by a sip of tea, I felt that it described that feeling of standing before a blank canvas, not sure what might emerge.
An abyss of uncertainty … face to face with something which does not yet exist, which it alone can make actual, which it alone can bring into the light of day.
I don’t work from life nor do I use reference photos so I am dependent solely on my memory and perceptions of the world. Standing in front of that canvas sometimes becomes a daunting moment, uncertain what memory or tiny flash of imagery that I had seen ages before might push its way onto the surface.
You hope whatever comes out brings the same sort of sensory pleasure that Proust experienced in sipping his spoonful of tea with a morsel of a madeleine in it but you never know what you’ll get.
Not everything from the past is cookies and tea.
I chose the painting above, Echoes From Time from my current Principle Gallery show, for this post because, for me, it represents how we often live in time and memory. They are always with us, shaping how we see the present and the future. And ourselves.
Okay, that’s all the time I have this morning. There is a blank surface waiting for me and I must go stand before it to summon up something from that abyss of uncertainty.
Hopefully, it will taste of madeleines.
Redtree Times 