FREEDOM

In high school I discovered the writings of Jiddu Krishnamurti. I’m thinking now of his book titled Freedom From the Known. Great title. I haven’t read his work much in the past twenty-five years but his influence has never waned.

Lately I’ve been doing small paintings whose primary subject is a house image.

I’m working in acrylic now, after decades using oils. I know how to use them fluently now and they suit my need for hyper-activity - speed painting. I don’t think it over, don’t ponder, peruse, wonder, worry, meditate. None of it! I paint. That’s it.  

I have no agenda and don’t care about what others may think. More than anything I’ve done in a while these paintings seem to be about: freedom.

To be free from the known is to glide along the pathways of existence without the burden of thinking about the experience. Thought thinks thought and we get wrapped up in the sticky web of thought. It takes a certain kind of trust to get through; trust that your accumulated knowledge (and wisdom?) will present itself without the need for thinking into it.

This kind of freedom is such joy. It is like flying.

That doesn’t mean that it is all positive, wonderful, smiling Buddha-stillness. The dark blob in these paintings is the ever-present Negative, Death, Misfortune, Pain, Sadness....that accompanies all of life by necessity. I welcome it!! Don’t give me cutesy-pootsie!! There is no state of utter Happiness devoid of Suffering. That is fantasy.