Michelangelo in Palimpsest
“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”
There are a lot of versions of this Michaelangelo quotation available on the Internet. Given that it is an English version of something he said in Italian (I assume) 500-ish years ago, I'm going to use them all and believe that the truth is in the layers.
“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”
It’s kind of the same thing with writing—you already know all the words to everything you are ever going to write. You just have to strike the ones you don’t need.
“The idea is there locked inside. All you have to do is remove the excess stone.”
I have written over and over-written versions of my Why statement for months now. Gorgeous layers of gorgeous words in color, with marginalia. Crossed-though, asterisked, highlighted, circled, and repeated. I have full notebooks—blocks of words on each page—that are not Why.
So I finished painting and started sculpting.
“Sculpture is made by taking away while painting is made by adding.”
To capture moments of joy so that we can recognize joy in every moment.
I added some depth and broke down the pieces.
To capture & connect moments that brighten joy & resist doubt so that we can see joy in every moment.
What can we do when we brighten joy & resist doubt? When we see joy and we don’t see fear, insecurity, anxiety, worthlessness, gloom and doom...you get it, we can do...
pretty much anything.
“I created a vision of David in my mind and simply carved away everything that was not David.”
So, what’s my pretty much anything? My David?
(To capture & connect moments that brighten joy & dispel doubt so that) I can (help others bring to) light what’s possible.
I love the conceit of English to English translation. The idea is to express one moment and then “translate” it as another moment that presents itself as a clearer restatement of the first but is really a subtext or a completely different text. Though we talk in this code all the time—say one thing but mean something else—to show it intentionally in writing makes our inability to clearly communicate more poignant and, oddly, more communicative. Words, words, words.
To capture moments of joy so that we can recognize joy in every moment by which I mean to help people capture clearness in who they are & what they bring so that we can find & connect with one & other by which I mean to light possibility.
There is a vista deep in each moment of decision that is replete with what we thought we’d lost and what we did not know we had. I turn into this moment with a clearness as soothing as the sound of the sea in a shell held against your ear and as awakening as the sun spilled across your bed on the first morning of a holiday.
“the prose of sculpture can’t be missed
for the weight. It delivers you.”
