When I contemplate the infinite complexity of everything I see before me, I can’t help but consider all that remains unseen – both the inconceivably small and the inconceivably large. We live in such a very small slice of all that is – let alone all that was or all that will be – and human perception receives only a minuscule sample. Most of Creation either can’t or won’t be seen by human eyes. (I find this to be of some consolation as I continue to paint and stack paintings under tables or in closets – perhaps some day to be seen – or perhaps never.)
So – we keep looking – all the while confidently expecting to discover something new and to find surprises. We’re usually not disappointed. However, Creation doesn’t require an audience. It simply is. There is no ‘performance,’ no frame or stage curtain to separate us from artifice; no anticipated narrative plot or conclusion. It exists for its own sake and in its own time – past and present. God’s identity is simply ‘I AM.”
We can only view Creation from within – we’re a part of it. There exists no objective, external space where we can sit comfortably as neutral spectators. We are contained within the spectacle. We perceive little and comprehend less and yet that very small sampling occupies all of the years that we’re given. We’re surrounded by overabundance. To grasp even the smallest portion, we have no recourse but to simplify – to abstract – we draw; we paint; we write… Our very thoughts are abstractions and constructions drawn from our collective experience. Our expressions are abstractions of abstractions, crudely translating experience into sound, word, and image.
2 Corinthians 4:18 (KJV): “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal”.