Title: Manuscript Cartography by Exotic Settlers (original manuscript made into art)

On the Artwork

ON THE ARTWORK - Manuscript Cartography by Exotic Settlers

The splatter paint over the faded pencil asks about the depth of the viewer. The viewer who chooses to go further than the paint enters into the experimental cartographic space where the name for this piece derives. While the content of the writing is obscured by the splatter paint, to view past the paint engages the viewer in multiple art forms as they clash (overlap) and harmonize (reveal new patterns and phrasings).

The choice of blue and green represent the sky and earth, as they are defined by this peculiar impression of their “settlement,” on the page. The sky and earth being part of a “settlement” connotes an entire world being impressed over the original impression on the page (the writing).

While settlement is often perceived as a calculated and technical mark of progress, it is in this sense being re-defined as an improvised chaos of pure human expression through the spontaneous splatter onto the penciled words, which originated on the page independently of any painting idea.

The splatter paint, in effect, embodies the “settler,” and its multi-colored facet further emphasizes its exoticism against the subdued writing.

While both the writing and the paint are part of spontaneous, fully improvised art forms of pure expression, the piece asks to defy the viewer’s preconceived notions of settlers as plain and understood and more; asks who the viewer resonates with, the settler or immediately observable and colorful expression (paint) or the original impression on the page which requires a bit more effort to engage with (writing).

The themes embedded within the paint and the writing, however, are expressed equally spontaneously and share the same space, either harmoniously or not relative to the viewer’s opinion, which aims at not presupposing any superiority between expressions of origination and settlement.

Preamble

PREAMBLE

Exotic Settlers charts the journey of experiencing the naturally transformative process of ending a period of transitional residence, and beginning to live in one place exclusively.

Questions of home, travel and what is foreign are approached creatively through a lens adjusted through self-reflection on these themes, which led to my own "settlement" within, as I have become more permanently resident in a specific place.

The transitional effect lingers psychologically whereby there are character archetypes and features of personal experience, which fade away and leave only a bitter nostalgia in their place, striking as a whiplash wound. This sensation is frequently common to those who stand their ground.

The concepts of the "settler" and normative stereotypes of the "exotic" are placed in abstract, sometimes jarring contexts as to displace fixed notions about any respective moral judgment.

The experimental verse goes through a process of intensified critique on our historic way of life as North American settlers and focuses this critique especially at our notions of the "other."

By the end of the collection, there is neither strict closure nor resolve about a permanent sense of home, only a greater awareness of perspective as it lies sometimes firmly, but mostly without any grasp on any actual "thing" on a ground of experimental, flowing, spontaneous expressions in language.

society, charities and addictions


father and step-father,
two examples who led either in obscurity or in clear sight,
my life, and living
away from home 18-24 years,
having found two more, father figure types,
Metis Canada and Bere Sudanese

now transforming
through spiritual marriage
to my near love
whose life casts a benevolent spotlight on my being,
and paths
with such wind,
a gusting splash,
refreshing the outer core
that foretells the dead body laughing at me

at the end day to my entire existence
these two spirits middle eastern/african 
and native/euro-american,
now transform their roles
before the all-vanishing fire
that is my dynamic strength

as a cognitive human life,
and a creativity to be my own person
with gratitude and inspiration

between every second breathed
before and after sunset,
to heed the call
and make a final disconnect,
from the childish and adolescent needs
of society, charities and
addictions fueled by money
and expectations floundering in empty hope,
that strains, bubbling with gasps

as the sea-born turns amphibious
and strives to stand erect
atop living earth and stone crumbling
and giving to the weight of the moment
and each release
in a cyclical pulse
sending the wakeful eye towards the drowned sky

booming
with angelic curses to return home,
yet unwavering
falling from cliffs
and facing sure
death's reflected smile

March 2, 2011
Confronting the self-honest intense passion of life in Canada

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