We walked up to Wegman’s this morning to get another shot, this one to protect against the flu. On the way up there I called Pete to get clarification on his origin verses beginning thesis. In yesterday’s post I mentioned that Pete drew a distinction between the two in similar fashion to the way Mondrian drew a distinction between instinct and intuition. I got a comment from Andrea that asked how you tell the difference. That called my attention to how I fudged the definitions. I am still trying to sort out instinct/intuition and I was not clear on the beginning/origin thing either so I called Pete. He was having lunch with some friends at Rocky’s so he called back once we were home.
When the Jesuits can’t give you a straight answer to a question they say it is all part of the mystery. Pete sees origin as “what caused all this?” He started painting these blobs of Casin paint without knowing what they were. Were they crashing the party, landing on top of or poking out from behind tight line drawings of physical objects? He discovered they were nebulas like the implosions of stars that led to the beginning of the universe.
Pete is forever searching, as any thinking person is, and he is currently illustrating lines from Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock.” I was at Woodstock, Joni wasn’t, but she captures the optimistic spirit of the festival better than anyone. I knew this. But I had no idea how deep the lyrics to her song are. “We are stardust.” Not glitter in some hippy’s hair but “billion year old carbon.” “We are caught in the devil’s bargain. And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”
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