euler motions

grief and salt - a spiral for 2 hands

In my previous drawing work, i have often found myself returning to the circle. The geometric circle for me was a force-field, unnatural in its symmetry and inaccessible in its lack of a clear beginning or end.

The language of the spiral serves as a real-world analogue to the perfect, idealized geometry of the circle. The circle is a shape organized by rigid laws and symmetries, existing a priori without a defined beginning or end. The circle can be safety. The space within the circle is protected by a force field of infinite equidistant points surrounding radially on all fronts. The spiral exists as an understanding that perfect circles are rare in nature. Much more often, we are governed (incessantly, at every moment) by laws outside our knowledge, oblivious to our hearts or our hands. The spiral is an intimate moment of communication with the laws of nature which requires listening more than speaking.

 

The Spiral is a lesson in finding comfort even as we give up control to forces we can’t hope to understand. One of the hardest lessons seems to be finding peace in the realization of how daunting inertia can be. The spiral is an intimate communication, a communion, with the unrelenting knot and tangle of laws which casually enact the systems holding our universe together. The same dream again. I’m on my starting blocks for the 100 meter dash. Once the pistol fires and I start running, my feet feel heavy. Like boots are weighing me down. The other racers pass ahead of me with ease. Leaving me behind in the distance. The harder I try to sprint, the more I glide into the air with each step. I’m wasting so much time in the air, I think, I don’t mean to leave the ground like this. But I can’t seem to push myself forward. Every strained lunge takes me higher up and away from the track.