KARL KEMPTON Engages
(Timglaset, Malmo, Sweden, 2018)
Malayalam (member of the Dravidian language family in
Kerala, India) and English are two of the languages poet-artist Dona Mayoora
speaks, writes and illuminates. Contemplating this collection, the conclusion
becomes obvious she volunteered as a scribe for Red
rendering its whispers through the prism of asemic writing. Works outside this
group prove others, such as Blue, also whisper secrets to her inner ear.
Moreover, many of her works exhibit by subject of choice and illuminated
poetic- and artistic-lined voice, the nuances heard by her intuitive ear.
Asemic writing, a post-literate movement,
begins with surrealists sourcing from the unconscious to play with
meaninglessness, anti-syntax made-up writing shapes. Abstract expressionists
exploring with calligraphy-like brush stokes expanded it, again from the
unconscious. Some point further back, to rock art as asemic because of its “contemporary
meaninglessness.” From the 1950s into the 1990s increased use of abstract
verbal signs, iconographics and calligraphies found in global visual text arts
solidified by the late 1990s into what has become a formal movement.
“Post-literate” carries implications beyond the constraints of this movement.
Nevertheless, literally tongue-in-cheek or not, the apocalyptic, or pessimistic
suggestion requires comment. There is some justification for this post- of many
post-s forming the deconstructive post-modernist fence line, plucked atonally
as if a new music of the spheres with which to rewrite the past and present
projecting into a future of its own image. Their argument arrives from obvious
positive consequences of computer graphics reinventing what the printing press
destroyed in Eurocentric cultures, illuminated books and calligraphy.
Calligraphy in these regions remains reduced to pretty writing. Iconographic
images convey quicker in meaning, greater in expanse than word. That graphics
ubiquitously populate today’s media leads to a logical assumed eventuality:
image replaces word. However, most asemic writers create without conscious
meaning, “write” from the unconscious asking readers/viewers to create their
own meaning and intent of the work. Essentially, Rorschach art.
With the
eclipse of symbolism by the pre-World War I avant-garde painters, the arts,
except perhaps music, have been lead by painters, not poets, in Eurocentric
cultures. From this, though not its direct cause, evolved in the late 1940s
non-reference art followed by non-reference poetics. The work refers only to
itself. Symbols were outlawed as were other references external to the work
causing the illiteracy of iconographic symbols and other symbolic usage. Intent
of the artist had no consideration. Criticism devolved to material content,
brush stroke, color, and so forth. Non-referential poetic theory and criticism
followed suit and tied to a jumbled dialectical-materialism philosophy
justifying their materialistic poetic and sometime-misuse of Buddhist
philosophy to support meaningless expressionism. Some asemics scribble (their
term) meaningless abstract images and calligraphies. Are we heading into the
desert of the self-indulged? Bleak as this may appear, this worship of the
mirage, I suggest an optimism seen in Dona Mayoora’s interpretations of Red’s
commentary during her moments of silence or contemplation. Hers and a handful
of other abstract calligraphers may be forging the initial steps reinvigorating
lost Eurocentric calligraphy and illumination traditions. Here neither
unconscious sourcing nor scribble reside. Conscious intent and meaningful
iconographic abstraction abide: “Will Red
(the square symbol) be heard, was my first thought. If there is no common
language for communication, how will it be interpreted by the listener
(bracket). Between these two symbols there are barriers, flow of gestures etc.
Is the listener hiding, or is the listener eagerly waiting to hear Red. I often found myself in a situation where
people misunderstood what others say and/or misinterpret what one is saying.
Even with a common medium of language.”
Many are
red’s symbolic and associated meanings: anger, blood, courage, danger, desire,
energy, fire, heat, id, joy, longing, love, malice, passion, radiance,
sensitivity, sexuality, strength, stress, vibrance, vigor, willpower, wrath,
and so on. Enter a red painted room, blood pressure elevates, metabolism
increases as well as enthusiasm and energy levels. Red belongs to Satan and
Cupid. Many reds are muddy, unlike the clear, bright red rose representing a
light-filled heart. In Sufism, red sulphur transforms silver to gold, the
symbol of enlightenment. Theosophy’s red, the 6th ray of their spiritual
rainbow, means devotional love.
In late
April 2018 three women visual text artists, composing, writing, drawing,
collaging or painting with red, were introduced by Serendipity and
Synchronicity. Dona Mayoora and Dawn Nelson Wardrope I met through my editing
and publishing interests on the Internet. While in San Francisco, I met Yuri
Shimojo; she was present at her exhibition, Sumi and Shu, the day
following her opening. After one of the more meaningful
introductory exchanges with an artist, I purchased her catalogue.
Apparently she felt the same, honoring our meeting by accompanying her
signature with the ideogram en: fate, karma, a blood relationship,
connection, or tie. Its extended karmic meaning holds within it a synchronistic
meeting in a significant spacial context during which the special connection is
made. Part of our discussion, since her art bridges shamanic iconographic
traditions across many unassociated groups she worked with, dove into the use
of iron oxides as the first reds in Africa nearly 300,000 years ago, to cinnabar
based red applied following a traditional Japanese approach for her series, and
to the fact an hour and a half drive north of my home the once oldest known
North American First People’s mining site was found uncovered by ocean activity
in 1990. The Chumash 6000 years ago pounded large cinnabar boulders into
smaller stones to transport for rock art and other arts. The ocean later
destroyed it. Our garden hosts a few surviving fragments from the beach
viewable from the mountains of southern Big Sur.
Those familiar
with typography know en is the space between words and letters. The
diligent typographer employs en to form and inform negative space
pleasant to the trained and untrained reader’s eyes. The skilled asemic
artist-writer manipulates en space beyond the liner lineup of
iconographic symbols merging with the em space, the space between lines
of type, moving the abstract forms into rhythmic dance, also pleasant to the
eye. Her rendered dances came from listening to Red
with the ear centered in the word heart.
That being
said, let us, then, bring our chairs, attachments to Red,
conscious or not, and sit around her waiting campfire cast in a full moon light
seen on the first page. Red-lined pathways are marked. The courageous can
follow the lines to the fire. The cautious can follow the lines stopping at the
boundary of uncomfortable radiance. Or, we can sit in a circle. Page by page
glowing images appear and disappear, erasing mind-chatter to hear fiery
tongues spell and whisper secrets, secrets Red
also speaks in the languages of other colors. Note that Dona listens to clear,
bright Red. Thus, always present, the
transcendent. The transcendent, if heard, if realized, means that one turning
to another in the circle sees their self in one grand talking-to-self
monologue. However, most do not want to hear or see. The
collection is an earwax remover. Experiencial illumination transforms, erases
the cataracts of opaqueness, vaporizes or exiles “isms.” Transcendency resides
in her other works; one, a series of lyrical homages to the calligraphic
flourished Zen Circle. Another, perhaps a learning from this series: “Rumī’s
Rubies,” – the Red square with red abstract
writing strokes suggesting his poetry. Her homage to Rumī, while outside the
frame of this collection, nevertheless being informed by it, orbits hearts open
for ascendant change that begins with clarity of unfiltered listening.
Karl
Kempton
Oceano, Ca
June, 2018
*****
Karl Kempton (Chicago, b: 1943) lives with his beloved
wife, Ruth, in Oceano, California. He
has been composing visual poetry and visual text art since the early 1970s. His
lexical and visual poems have been published internationally in 45 titles, 50
anthologies; seen in over 100 group exhibitions; and, widely published in
magazines and on the internet. He edited and published America’s first
international visual poetry and language (visual text art) journal, Kaldron (continuing on-line: http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/kaldron.htm).
He is co-founder and co-director of the
San Luis Obispo Poetry Festival (Language of the Soul); co-founder and co-director
of Corners of the Mouth, a monthly poetry reading series, San Luis Obispo;
co-editor for special editions of visual poetry magazines; curator of seven
international visual poetry exhibitions; advisor for visual poetry collections
including Renegade blog and anthology; and lead editor for the
forthcoming Bengali blog visual text art anthology, http://
synaptry.blogspot.pe/, the first of its kind in India. His latest book, poems
about something & nothing, was published by Paper Press, https://www.amazon.com/dp/1516861043/
ref=rdr_ext_tmb.
