See Cy, Part II

Museum Brandhorst - München, Germany (October 2019)

At every corner, at every turn, there he lived in all his glorious mark-making.

And at every corner, at every turn, there I had the pleasure of experiencing the pure magic of those very marks.

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When in München . . . See Cy.

Museum Brandhorst - München, Germany (October 2019)

By far, one of the most serendipitous events in my life.  

Traveling across the globe, München was probably my least anticipated spot.  Simply put, I was more excited to visit the Abbey Library in St. Gallen, Hallstatt in Austria, the Dolomites in Northern Italy, and the whole of Switzerland.  

During my first night in Europe, on a whim, I decided to Google contemporary museums in München.  I was not expecting to come across anything of significant personal interest, but I was every bit wrong.  I nearly toppled over when Museum Brandhorst appeared in the search results--boasting an inventory of over 170 Cy Twombly pieces.  I could not believe my good fortune.  I had struck gold.

The night before we were to make the trek to the art district, Kunstareal, my very real allergy to tobacco smoke (so many smokers in Europe) peaked.  Sickness slapped me like a slab of impasto paint.

Yet, for the few hours the following morning, when we were among his work, life felt extraordinarily surreal.  A dream state.  The fact I was there seemed eons ahead of my humble existence.  Maybe it was delirium settling into my feverish head, but I was convinced (and still am) that this was the reason our itinerary included München.

It seems serendipity has a way of bringing Cy and me together time and time again.

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The Rose (V)

Cy Twombly, The Rose (V) 

acrylic on wood panel, 2008

99 1/4" x 291 1/4"

The Roses XXVI

Infinitely at ease
despite so many risks,
with no variation
of her usual routine,
the blooming rose is the omen
of her immeasurable endurance.

Do we know how she survives?
No doubt one of her days
is all the earth and all
of our infinity.

– Rainer Maria Rilke
translated from French by A. Poulin Jr.

 

Third Floor, Twombly

"I don't work 9 to 5."
-Cy Twombly

Thanks for summing up my life ever perfectly, Cy.

I Walk Scribble the Line

What if we were renegade lines without end

wandering across the planes of existence 
vying for a genuine touch, one palpable connection among
scores of uniformed lines

And what if we were marks made to illustrate brevity
restricted to a finite period and space

rendering that which is temporary, ephemeral to
hunters of meaning 

We are lines, we are marks, we are scribbles that vary in
all the ways possible.  

 ---

Find me where you know me to be.
-OH

Drawings of Serendipity

Cy Twombly, Scenes from an Ideal Marriage (1986)

acrylic and pencil on paper, 54 x 73 cm

(images from http://www.cytwombly.info/twombly_gallery.htm)

 --

Coming to terms with who I am completely has been a difficult maturation process.  People meet me, see my work, and are often surprised by my choice of subject matter.  I think it is because they expect to see paintings of flowers.

No flowers.  (At least not the easily identifiable ones.)

Recently, I have found myself pacing back and forth with the idea of normality.

Normality isn't something I will have the chance of knowing due to a number of factors (mainly, depression and OCD).

That is ok though.  

Given enough time and experience, everything finds its own.

Kind of like today.  We went to visit my paternal grandfather at his grave, and on the most ideal of spring days no less.  We go every April.  And as I type this entry at an hour past midnight, I am reminded that he was the one who first encouraged my brother, who now tattoos people for a living, and me to pick up a pencil and draw.  He had us draw lines and lines of oranges, eggs, and everything round-shaped or oval-formed; I'm talking fifty of each. 

(He taught us how to fold origami, too.)

He would be happy to know that both of my cousins recently proposed to their girlfriends and are now engaged.  My sister has been engaged to her fiance for the past year.  They all have normal, steady jobs.

While they shared their proposal stories (one happened in Aruba, the other in Hawaii), my mind took me to a quieter place.  This occurs often.  It is in this place that I sit and wait.  Just wait.

Marriage.  

Relationships.

The normal thing to want.  And for most people, they find it.

Again, normal isn't what I know.  And normal isn't something I can ask or look for and expect to receive or find.

Tonight though, as I was putting a deeper dent into The Wild Trees, a narrative nonfiction about tree climbing and climbers, I came across this passage from page 93: " . . . and Denison got up and, in a loud voice, spoke about partners who climb together for life.  'Marriage is a rope you tie between you,' he said.  'It's like a rope that joins two climbing partners and keeps them from falling.  Marriage is about rope management.  You have to take care to avoid knots and snarls in the rope that joins you together.  You can't keep the rope too tight, but you can't let it get too loose, either.  Each of you has to give your partner enough slack for freedom of movement, so that you both can reach the top together.'"

I may have very well shed a tear or two.

Several more pages in, I put the book down for the night.  I proceeded to google images of Cy Twombly drawings.  (What can I say, my mind jumps from trees to childlike scribbles all in an hour's work.)

I came across Cy Twombly Gallery, and upon entering the page, I was presented with over one hundred one-inch thumbnails.  After a quick peer at the tiny thumbnails, one in particular caught my eye and I clicked it open.  As I stared at the work on paper dated 1986, I couldn't help but smile.  

The title read, Scenes from an Ideal Marriage.

 

Maybe I can't have normal.  

But perhaps I can have serendipity.

And let's not forget drawings.

Many, many drawings. 

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I first heard of Cy Twombly during my undergraduate BFA exhibit.  A gallery visitor mentioned my drawings held a Twombly-like quality.  Childlike-scribble quality, really.  It may have been one of the finest compliments my work has ever received.