(Notes from chapter 3)  Image and Gesture

     "The obvious is a temporary satisfaction"

     Touched by the Gods

     Spirituality

     The essence of Greek religion in 21st Centuary Wales. It is everywhere - underneath the surface. Touched by fire - cleansed by water. Drunk on wine. What is right in action for you? How do you feel about that? About what? About your intention? About what the gods reveal to you and your thoughts on that? What you make it - and how you communicate it. Recycled morality shaped the world.

     Epic and drama. Hugely significant moments and the artistic spin we put on everyday lives - the gods - shape us here. What we see reacts and reverberates within us. You are your own author. You know what you see and how you feel about it. Now. Combined - author and critic. Led and observed. What is this experience? Devine and Human. Dyonisian and Apollinian - Art and Action. Or reaction? Gadamer offers an opening - a door. To the Aesthetic Realm - to feeling as well as knowing. To allowing the essence of ones surroundings in. And of critiquing our position in there, as we see and feel what filters through. Self awareness and experiencing the world. Try on the shoe - it might fit. Your intuition is a Gift (from the Gods!)

     Don't be afraid of what you will become - it will be beautiful

     You. Will. Be. Beautiful

      Expression in Though

     Freedom in thinking. Roaming. Within intrepretation there is meaning without deliberate thought. Contradiction. How can we want to interprate something when in thinking nature reveals itself unintentially? Is there a deliberate intention in thought as well as a natural one? Feeling and thinking guide. Meaning will come without deliberate thought. A reflex action. How can I maintain this attitude without having a preconcieved ideal before engaging with it? Is Aestheticism an attitude? An approach? How do I grow? Preconcieved? 

     Interpretation and poetry go hand in hand. The preconcieved is an openness. To ones self. Intention - spirit - discovery. Life is not intended. It is experienced. It is unwravelled. - revealed. We do not have control over this experience. The element of intention is what? An element. A component of our faculties. Part of a picture that makes you "you". A deeper realm into which we delv. Which we communicate - through art. These faculties combine. Transforming. Always in motion.

"That's Who"

Oil on Card

40 x 50 cm

     And how do you feel about that? 

     If you can imagine a constant regression - constant observation and judging of the experience. A watcher watching on - forever. Critiquing what he sees, what he experiences. How we judge the usefulness of what we experience. This interpretation will never be defined as such. But will be experienced in new and useful ways over and over again in the form of art. There is no conclusion here - merely a work in progress. And complete freedom.

      Art in Progress

     Where we go - an open realm - should be? Explored. We do not know what lies there but we know we will find ourselves

     Ethics

     Life

     Brotherhood

     Truth

     What will be will be.

     "Obviously the language of interpretation should not assume the place of that toward which it itself is pointing" (p72)

     What does this say about interpretation? Interpretation is a process. There is always more. "That toward which it itself is pointing" is only the beginning. Point away - run with it - interpretation needs more - curiosity. "Point away from itself". Gadamer talks of poetry "pointing away from itself". This happens when we do not assume the place of that towards which it itself is pointing - is all there is. Obviously this requires thought and inspiration. Curiosity. Look further. Look deeper. 

     The original. Expression in thought

"I Love You"

Oil on Canvas Board

50 x 40cm

 

     Interpretation means open eyes, open heart and open mind. Everything anew. Gadamer warns against approaching situations with a preconcieved idea of what - is - to - be. Either what is to be confronted, or as an idea about how you as an individual will be in situations. Stay loose. Stay open. And be led by the art. I think this is his message. And I agree with that. It certainly does describe a genuineness here. And I think this is the essence of Aesthetics, and certainly shapes my world. Art in progress.

"Who?

Pencil on Paper

9/4/26

"Catching"

Pencil on Paper

13/4/26

   

     What we know comes from a place we cannot describe. Existence from the jaws of nothingness.

     WHAT WILL YOU BE?

Untitled

Oil Pastel on Card

February 2026

     The art whispers, it appears enigmatically, gentle or harsh, wrapped up in enigma - emerging from the Abyss. Taking us slowly where it will. This freedom is a leap, because we have to admit, we do not have control over it. Art is freedom - yes - it is also a risk.

"In You"

Oil on Card

   

    Revealing

     Poet and Interpreter. Creation and understanding. Juxtaposed, related, intimated. Read. And know. There is always a moment, as Gadamer describes, where - the sign - the poem or word resonates. The poet and the interpreter are set to work. Complimenting each other in a dance. The laden meaning becomes resonant, and we grow. Past and present possibilities, we all have this inside of us a a basic creative force. A Nietzschean force/fire. An open door to infinite possibilities. All of this wrapped up in the poet and interpreter - in the Art.

     Consideration: of all the things that happen to us in this life, what we see and feel, only a small amount of it is under our control. We are mixed together, using our faculties to "make sense of "what it is to be human"". Gadamer's position is that the only way to do this genuinely is to open oursleves up to art - to let feel, to let happen, and to go where it guides us. He states that our intention is a small amount of this - that living is not a deliberate act, but partrlty intending where we go, also being led. By the art.