Above The Discord • S5
⊛ Above the Discord • S5
⊛ cut paper + washi / wood
⊛ 6.1 x 7.3 in • 155 x 185
A cloud among the clouds
Careening through mountain passes
Skimming ripples across the surface of secret rivers
Propelled by waves of undulating joy
This flight needs no compass
No instruments of orientation
No charts dictating a premeditated route
Rejoice in the caress of rushing air
Exult in the bliss of motion
Is it odd that my first post* for the S • series pieces is number 5?
I’ve never felt particularly beholden to chronology, but if I were being completely honest with myself, I’d need to point the finger at a slip in organization and time juggling.
So, what is S • series?
Officially (insofar as anything I make up out of thin air is official), S•series is:
a sprawling experimental playground, a low-pressure place to produce smaller, simpler, more extemporaneous pieces. To poke new ideas with a stick and see how they react.
What that means, mostly, is that I’ve been making a lot of larger, time-consuming work these past couple years. Complicated cuts and layering; attempts at deeper themes. Stuff I really can’t afford to screw up. And I’ve loved doing them.
But sometimes I want to be silly.
I want to give myself permission to make slip-ups. I want to do small, wacky pieces with monkeys on zipping clouds, or families of creatures in subterranean caverns, or Santa Claus in a Hawaiian shirt. Maybe I want to test a new technique or glue. And I want to do them quick. With S-series, I give myself a (moderately) rigid deadline of 3 days from idea to completion.
Above the Discord • S5 flew together for a Year of the Monkey exhibition a little while back. Yes, he was certainly influenced a bit by Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, although this simian is not, literally, that demon/deity. Unless, I suppose, you want him to be. On a side-note, I love that there’s such a grey area between demon and god. Anime fans may know the character as Sun Goku of Dragon Ball fame. Add in a hint of the waveform I’ve used in a few of my pieces for sound, rhythm, heartbeat, etc. Toss in a dash of optimism for the new year and the future. Stir in a drop of distilled pure joy of freedom and movement - something I often wish I had a little more of. Secure that to a very chunky hunk of wood.
*A Right Jolly Old Elf (His Eyes - How They Twinkled) fits the S•series definition, and has been retconned as S4. And technically was blogged about first.
