THEODORE - ABOUT MY WORK

The first time I saw Michelangelo's David I was five years old. The second time I saw it I was thirteen and it shocked me because of how much it had shrunk. Michelangelo wrote - 'Whoever does not like the leaves ought not to come here in May.' The story is time, chronos, circular time. The size and shape of things change. Everything influences me even in its absence. Without the memories that I have developed through time I would be a child freshly born...no, I would be just-conceived. I am always building on this story and working toward the end of it, may it be death or forgetfulness. I end up spending a large portion of my time making things that seem to have little purpose like paintings, sculptures, masks, and music. I get absorbed in them and through them I sometimes brush up against that being that was before memory started...if memory started. It's like digging to find a hole.

Painting for me is like creating double exposed images with a camera or spilling mustard on the sidewalk or carving your name in a block of ice or licking the sweat of off your lovers thigh or tasting fresh fruit after a fast or singing into a well or dancing all night or going into a sweat lodge or mopping or playing the flute, smashing rocks together to make rhythms to greet the Dali Lama, finding a sunny sleepy spot in the grass, crushing your toe with a dropped rock, the dust gathering on ledges, hummingbirds trapped in skylights, driving and throat singing bouncing harmonics off of the windshield, singing into a looping machine, sex in the late morning with the sun coming in through the leaves of the big leaf maple casting hand print shadows on skin, chasing chickens through the yard, swinging in the hammock and inventing things to make living easier and less destructive.
Art swallows it all.

When I look back at my life I see many things. I see my childhood through the filter of now. I see the many different filters that I have passed through. Each one seems to be a less or more obscured way in which to be a gazing. While I am painting the paint becomes my filter, my teacher and my guide. I get to examine how I deal with the present moment. Like a tree root that struggles as it burrows into the earth. It cuts itself on sharp stones as it searches for nutrients and water...sustenance. As it grows it gets stronger and thicker. Over time it can break apart stone, lift houses and infiltrate water manes. Slow persistence. These tendrils of my progress reach out in all directions, into the dark, exploring and seeking nourishment. This is a metaphor for my process. But what of the product? Why value a painting? Sometimes it is not so clear. But I do value the shade of a large tree. I do value the strength of its branches as the rain and wind move them and make them dance. Without roots the tree is easily toppled. I find my strength to greet the day in the act of creating. I have spent time gazing at the wonder around me. In that gazing I have often found a the same quietness come over me that I experience in creating. To be in this awe is a gift that quiets my mind and allows for the song of the multiverse to creep in. theodore holdt 2005