A storm is easier to weather under a roof and the sturdy walls beneath it. Space can only be measured in a room with a floor below and a ceiling above. A house is the mind of its owner made visible. Every stitch of clothing, stick of furniture, every book and bibelot, brass tacks the owner like a moth to a mounting board. Houses are the spiritual expression of our choices, or lack of them, of our imagination or of its absence. Where we lay our head is truly where we live our lives. In a house we our more than the smoke through our chimneys.
RIPE, painting by Steven E. Counsell (from his visionary art book titled ILLUMINATIONS The Geography of the Imagination, pages
Objects without gravity live in space, or the dream of space in the mind. Haven’t we all wanted to float free of limits. Move through a medium like fish or finches? In art I have tried not to let gravity interfere with my perception. Simone Weil wrote a book called GRAVITY AND GRACE. Gravity holds us down. Grace is buoyant. Angels can fly because, they take themselves lightly.
Ordinary Devine, painting detail from Visionary Art book titled ILLUMINATIONS The Geography of the Imagination, page 86, by Steven E. Counsell, Artist/Poet
The neurons firing in a brain resemble lightning firing in a storm. Storms think and minds rain in a preamble to growth. Living in New Mexico I take delight in being in one of the most spectacular places in the nation for thunderstorms; where more people per-capita are struck by lightning than anywhere else in the country. I find this encouraging somehow. In this detail from The Ordinary divine all hell is breaking loose, ionizing the air and making everything more acutely alive. Kant said in, AESTHETIC JUDGEMENTS;
“Storms and the like when assured of our safety, are our attempts to gain access to fear.”
A storm is easier to weather under a roof and the sturdy walls beneath it. Space can only be measured in a room with a floor below and a ceiling above. A house is the mind of its owner made visible. Every stitch of clothing, stick of furniture, every book and bibelot, brass tacks the owner like a moth to a mounting board. Houses are the spiritual expression of our choices, or lack of them, of our imagination or of its absence. Where we lay our head is truly where we live our lives. In a house we our more than the smoke through our chimneys.
