Grasping at the Infinite

Last Friday I had a day off of work and I got to sketching. This time instead of the more structured blocks, strips and rectalinearities, I got to scribbling and doodling. Soon, the wild scratches of my pen became more gestural, which then became more formal and then reverted back into chaos yet again. What seeped out of me were attempts at graphically representing the shape of the infinite, or at least they started that way...

Yesterday I picked up my copy of "A Thousand Plateaus" by Deleuze & Guattari and started reading where I left off a few weeks ago (I have been gnawing at this book all year. It's dense subject matter leaves me puzzled, bleary-eyed and tired at times, so i don't generally get very far before I put it down again, while at other times it strikes me to my core and weaves threads through my existence). Suffice it to say, the words took on a new meaning on that day, and the essay which started as a manifesto to the 'Body Without Organs', suddenly turned to the nature of shapes, form and the dichotomous relationship between expression and content.

These ideas struck a bit of a nerve with me and I began thinking of my own sketches and art in such a way, as I do seem to have two very differing realms in which I dabble; the swirling free-flowing organic forms [expression] and the carefully articulated and placed geometric forms, shapes and objects [content]. While the lines sometimes blur unintentionally, I think it is important to be aware of these strata at the inherent core of whatever we create. But awareness is the easy part; understanding is an entirely different beast.