ON THE PINK PAINTINGS
Thoughts and instructions to myself
Begin with emptiness
Try not to interfere with false certainties
Try not to impress
The slightest pink is not much but it shows signs of life
Emptiness invites filling
Without technique or enhancement
Nothing is not uninteresting
Insignificance interests me
Between my head and my feet is an empty space without sharp edges
A jelly fish space (H.D.)*
The jelly fish mind checks out things that are too soft, too sweet, too simple, too slight, too vulnerable, too silly,
too pink
Put my nose, my fingertips, my tongue in my eyes
Under closed eyelids use remote control
Mistakes have more possibility than correctness
Pleasure is more inviting than discipline
Moving across soft edges makes it easier to stay in contact
Dwell rather than dart around, "dwell" has weight is slow is soft
Want small things intensely
Be kind to loss
"One cannot give a proof of the existence of what is truer, the trick is to believe. To believe weeping."(C.L.)*
"Is belief a skill, then? Perhaps skill is a question of faith. Yes. It is. Both: it is a matter of taking the leap. Of
passing from the kingdom of logic to that of living evidence. Losing assurance to gain truth. In one fell swoop.
The trick of faith. The trick: what we have no name for." (H.C.)*
Jo Smail
1998
*Hilda Doolittle, Clarice Lispector, Helene Cixous.