Beading the Inner Fire: An Open Celebration of the Individual
A Work in Progress · Untitled, Part 3
This work-in-progress post is part of a whimsical, freeform series that chronicles, in both prose and poetry, the creation of Untitled, a 20” x 24” mixed-media work featuring beadwork, washi (artisanal Japanese paper), and more.
Access all posts in this series via the Table of Contents.
It’s been a while since I’ve published an update on Untitled—but the intention for this piece has quietly come into clearer focus lately, so posting Part 3 seemed a propos.
In Part 1, I reported that this piece was pestering me to be made, as it were. Metaphorically speaking, it was definitely alive in me back in April, but it was also a colorful, feisty stranger I’d just met; an unknown quantity. This was the beginning of something special, but what? I had no idea.
Though the specifics of Untitled’s design aren’t settled yet, its main impetus now feels substantial enough to talk about, so I’ll be tracing its contours today.
But first, since I’m fresh out of the distinct creative development phase that, for me, usually clarifies a piece’s main thrust, I’ll describe how this familiar, dream-like process usually unfolds—and how it lays the groundwork for the design/execution work to follow. This will explain how I’ve determined (or have come to understand, rather) what Untitled is all about.
Let’s dive in.
Grabbing hold of the golden thread
I’m not sure how inspiring ideas come to me, nor do I know where they come from.
In any case, during the ideation process that precedes a piece’s initial sketches, I’ll typically feel a compelling idea emerge, and then congeal into a stable intention: a rich, fully-formed concept unlikely to change (except to become a more refined version of itself).
This highly intuitive, non-linear consolidation process typically unfolds over weeks or months, delivering key information much like dreams do. While logic doesn’t mediate my ongoing conversation with the Muse at this early stage, our messy, disjointed exchange around an incoming piece is anything but frivolous. Indeed, it brings me a meaningful understanding of the impetus for a new piece—so my one job, here, is to remain curious and receptive.
While logic and linear thinking are crucial in certain stages of the creative process, they can be detrimental in others. For this stage, I purposely keep them on standby.
Rhyme and reason are not to be demanded of dreams being born.
Once an intention stabilizes, the die is cast: By this point, I can’t fully see the work in my mind’s eye, but I can acutely sense its character, its emotionality, its motivations, its internal tensions, its wisdom, its value, and so on. By this point, the piece has got plenty to say about itself; as such, it’s ripe to engage with on the physical plane.
This final stage prior to breaking ground in the studio has little to do with hatching detailed plans, and everything to do with registering a piece’s unmistakable id at a gut level. This part of the process is all about acknowledging and understanding the energy seeking to shape the creative work ahead, and putting myself in service to it.
I’ve completed this stage for Untitled. The piece is now a known quantity.
As I’ll explain later on, the concept for this piece connects with a perennial fascination of mine. Sometimes, the Muse delivers something entirely new, unexpected, unexplored; here, I’ve just received clear confirmation that the time has come to explore and express a mystery that’s long occupied my heart and mind.
The intention for Untitled
The title of this post, and the line in bold type in the Note below, both give you the gist. Barring any major, unexpected change, this idea, and the various reflections connected to it—which I’ll outline shortly—will find their way into the finished piece and its definitive title.
“All living beings are slow-burning fires.”
A tribute to the individual,
‘Untitled’ explores and celebrates
the elusive, indescribable ‘élan vital’
that both shapes and powers a person’s uniqueness.
The Big Question that’s led me here
I’ve long wondered what makes people so very much themselves.
My reflection on the uniqueness of individuals has been ongoing for over 20 years. It connects with, and/or has influenced, a wide swath of my perspectives, experiences, and deeply held principles. That said, this is the first time I’ll be writing about this in any depth, so I hope you’ll bear with me: Along the way, a few half-baked thoughts will realistically have to go back in the oven until they come out right.
I’m well aware that this fascination of mine is neither novel nor unique to me. This is probably one of those bottomless rabbit holes that mystics, philosophers and laypeople have been stumbling into for the last few aeons. (Incidentally, I’ll look forward to discovering and posting about some of these thinkers as I chronicle the making of Untitled; I’ll also look forward to discussing traditional teachings such as this one with my own elders and kin.)
I don’t expect to find any definitive answers to the Big Question above in making this piece, but venturing further into it, and stitching various strands of this reflection into a gorgeous beaded work, seems plenty worthwhile nonetheless.
Ultimately, I hope to come out of this process with a stunning piece that’s also very much itself.
And, to the extent that Untitled is meant as an overt, unabashedly joyful celebration of the individual, it owes it to its own mission to be an honest expression of this individual in this moment. Walking my own talk means shining my own light, and I say so without shame. (We all should.)
This rabbit hole features 3 distinct but connected tunnels.
✧ 1 ✧
The individual in the now: uniqueness, rarity and preciousness
All human beings are one-offs. We’re born, we die; in life, we’re unlike anyone else, past, present, or future. They broke the mold when they made every last one of us.
People’s uniqueness is readily observable in any encounter. This much is obvious. Less obvious, perhaps: People’s uniqueness is baked into what they do as well as who they are. If one has developed skills in service to creative work (in the broadest sense), the products of their work will, upon close inspection, reveal a trademark imprint, and will often be said to be unmistakably theirs. Not only do we recognize the people we know, we also recognize their visible, audible, tangible output as clear outgrowths of their will, agency, and/or characteristic way of being.
For his or her inimitable look, voice, gait, fingerprint, handwriting, cooking, cabinet-making or musicianship, e.g., a human being is, indeed, as rare and unique as a snowflake or sunset.
All of us are rare, and therefore precious. What’s more:
Unique individuals are no less precious for being ubiquitous.
If no one individual can be said to be special, that’s because we all are.
Accordingly, I believe all individuals contain the seeds of an iconic style.
That’s not to say that many people achieve one, let alone on a grand scale. Many don’t believe it’s possible, honorable, or worthwhile to realize the fullest expression of the living, combustible treasure they are, and therefore never make it their goal. Tragedy is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. Personally, I behold with frightening regularity.
In any case, I believe that, given the right support and circumstances, intentional cultivation of idiosyncrasies, the likes of which have gifted us the masterpieces of renowned artists (e.g., the works pictured/linked here) can be undertaken by anyone willing to commit to their craft over the long term.
A trademark style, as an idiosyncratic extension of a person’s unique identity, is wrought in the well tended, slow-burning fires that are individual growth and dedicated practice.
Incidentally, there are few things I love more than an unmistakable style.
Creative actualization is always cause for celebration.
✧ 2 ✧
The individual over time: the magnificence of a life cycle, with its long parades of fleeting states
For years, I’ve spontaneously imagined people I encounter in public as their younger or older selves. I’ll be on the metro—Montreal’s subway—pretending to mind my own business… As I discreetly people-watch, my mind will conjure up a mental reel much like those YouTube videos in which people have assembled thousands of selfies into a multi-year chronicle of their aging/transformation.
My mind so loves accelerated renderings of human (or non-human) life cycles that it’ll spontaneously cook them up just for fun. That’s probably weird. Just me? Anyway...
All living beings are slow-burning fires.
Like any fire, a person is forever moving through birth, growth, transformation, decay, and death; the full arc of their life story is a fleeting, one-off occurrence; their ongoing transformation turns on the properties of their fuel, the weather conditions under which they burn, the way they’re fed, stoked and/or neglected over time, and so on.
Like any fire, however modest or spectacular, a person exists in/as a continuous series of nows, in which some metaphysical essence or intention is constantly interacting with an ever-changing environment.
✧ 3 ✧
The individual out of time: the ghost in the machine; human essence as an eternal, underlying dream; the soul, as it were
In a basic sense, Untitled is shaping up to be an exploration of human essence—not of the essence that enables crass essentialism, of course (i.e., lazy, short-sighted group-based stereotypes), but of the countless essences—plural—that constitute the precious, non-replicable phenomena we refer to as individuals.
For the purposes of this adventure, I’ll be situating DNA alongside fingerprints as an end product. In other words, I won’t be conceptualizing a person’s genes as the raw material, blueprint or source code that generates them. While I’ll be inquiring into what makes a person unique, genetic material is not the answer I’m after here. Of course, that might be a viable scientific answer to the aforementioned Big Question, but that angle doesn’t interest me in the context of this project.
If humans are electric, I want to understand what it is about the specific electricities—plural—that bring our inimitable circuitboards online, conferring upon each individual a distinctly recognizable shape and purpose. What’s the impetus behind the code? What gives us breath? Why does fire burn?
Ultimately, I’m interested in the metaphysics of human singularity.
I’ll bet some understanding of God sits at the end of this tunnel.
In any event, the soul may be the ultimate idiosyncrasy.
And all of these wondrously gnarly questions are calling me home.
Parting thoughts and side quests ahead
I’d underestimated just how much this line of philosophical inquiry has occupied my thoughts and creative process over time, captivating and enrapturing me from countless angles. Then I wrote this 2,100-word post as a quick introduction (!) to the reflection most likely to shape the creation of Untitled.
Now I’ve got my work cut out for me.
I expect this journey to yield a new beaded work on a 20” x 24” panel, way more questions than answers, and beauty in surprising places. I’ll look forward to sharing it all here.
This series is meant as a making-of, but Untitled largely turns on a rich and recurring philosophical obsession of mine. For this reason, I expect to publish posts featuring the piece’s progress in the studio as well as various meditations on human singularity. Posts in the latter category will likely feature the following:
haecceity as it was conceptualized in the 14th c. by philosopher/theologian Duns Scotus (and later expressed as inscape by Victorian-era priest/poet G. M. Hopkins)
the development of personal style/voice in jazz
an anecdote: human uniqueness as seen through a psychedelic haze
contemporary collectivists’ under-appreciation/abuse of the individual in the context of contemporary identity politics
But for now, the studio’s calling. You’ll find me splashing around in acrylic medium and shiny Japanese washi in Part 4.
Until then, friends… Feed that fire.
I love these deep reflections from artist. Your in particular-this process of “feeding the fire” of human singularity is something I see as essential to how we engage with our own souls and with each other. Each of us is a living, breathing mosaic, and our job, like yours, may simply be to tend to this mystery, honoring it not by defining it but by celebrating its many forms, trusting that each turn in the spiral brings us closer to a richer understanding.