God’s Appointment Book for 5/11/2010
I continue to be fascinated (ok, obsessed) by the problems of God and the world: the idea that there’s a perfect, omnipotent being doing stuff in a world fraught with imperfection. I mean, it’s tough to picture, and endlessly intriguing, to me. Here you are, perfect—plus you wield the unrestricted oomph to pull off all your perfect plans—yet you seem happy to operate in a context that allows for chaos to happen and is chock full of individuals who seem pretty free to honor or ignore what you have in mind.
So, as omnipotent master of my canvas and colors, I explore what it’s like to have a distinct plan, but work it through a chaotic system.
In this group of four paintings, I chose four target colors, with the blue, red, yellow and black ratios based on fibonacci proportion of 2,3,5,8 (another thought stream there, sorry. More later.). Here’s what the targets look like:
So, when it’s time to spatter blue paint, the first grid gets 50% of its squares randomly removed, the second gets 20% removed, the third gets 30% removed, the fourth 20%. Red it’s 20% on the first, 30% on the second, and so on. (Check out “About my Process” in the left column if you’re new.)
Here’s the result of the intersection of my target intention pushed through the sieve of a random system. What does this tell us about how God works his thing?
Filed under: Developing the Process, Duality in God's Nature, Random (Ha!) Thoughts
“God’s Appointment Book for 2-16-09″
I owe a lot to www.random.org for supplying me daily with wonderful “true” random numbers. Their website also provides a copious supply of math philosophy that dumps me pretty quickly into the deep weeds. In reading the ponderings of these high-octane math minds, I can see I’m definitely just skimming the surface of this whole idea, but It’s fun to see what goes into the search for “true” randomness.
One irony I love is that this random number stuff is a great balance of opposites. It’s NUMBERS, right? How more technical and cold and mechanical can you get than that? I view the numbers part of my art as the “control” end of control/chaos, the “head” part of the head/heart balance. But, random.org tells me their numbers are generated “by atmospheric noise,” which I understand as basically radio static picked up from charges in the atmosphere. So, what turns out to be the source of the mechanical, strict control aspect of my artwork? It’s nature! Apparently a machine can’t do as good a job at manufacturing randomness as nature does. Now add on top of this that the Bible says randomness is solely the province of the Creator: Proverbs 16:33 “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.” So is randomness a kind of signature of Deity?
My usual procedure for making my paintings is to set up a canvas on the floor, and cover it with a grid of wooden blocks to act as masks for each cell of the grid. I then go to random.org and have it generate enough numbers for all the blocks, and appropriate digits for what I have planned. For instance, if I have a 20x 20 grid and want to remove 1/5th of the blocks, I’ll have random.org generate 400 digits between 1 and 5, and remove a block every time a “1″ comes up. Instead of printing these integers out and having to look at a piece of paper and remove blocks at the same time, I have my Mac speak the number list to me which leaves both hands free.
The result? I make my paintings by listening to and obeying —quite literally— a voice from the sky.
