the universe in a room

"S. lived in a space so small that at first it seemed to defy you, to resist being entered. The presence of one person crowded the room, two people choked it. It was impossible to move inside it without contracting your body to its smallest dimensions, without contracting your mind to some infinitely small point within itself. Only then could you begin to breathe, to feel the room expand, and to watch your mind explore the excessive, unfathomable reaches of that space. For there was an entire universe in that room, a miniature cosmology that contained all that is most vast, most distant, most unknowable. It was a shrine, hardly bigger than a body, in praise of all that exists beyond the body: the representation of one man's inner world, even to the slightest detail. S. had literally managed to surround himself with the things that were inside him. The room he lived in was a dream space, and its walls were like the skin of some second body around him, as if his own body had been transformed into a mind, a breathing instrument of pure thought. This was the womb, the belly of the whale, the original sire of the imagination. By placing himself in that darkness, S. had invented a way to dreaming with open eyes."

- Paul Auster, The Invention of Solitude

tomorrow

As I wait

for tomorrow's sorrow

on the windowsill alights

a sparrow

straw in beak.

two states of being

two states of being

acrylic on canvas, 24x20", 2016

the underbelly (II)

the underbelly (II)
acrylic and watersoluble graphite on paper, 24x18", 2014

the endless expanse

I have a memory

of a distant future -

I look up at the sky and see

an unending vastness 
mirrored.

I imagine that if you were to set your eyes on the endless expanse, there could be two possible reactions. You would either be terrified or you would feel a great calm. No matter what your reaction, you would understand what you were looking at. To conceive of its boundaries would be a futile attempt. And your conception of time and relative size would crumble. You would see yourself in these limitless depths and recognise your place in it all. It would seem like a meaningless accident or a grand miracle. Or both.