Judgement

Elements: Yupo paper, wax paper with string (San Fran),
hand-printed hand-made paper (Origamido), tissue paper
(blue circle), Nepalese paper (orange circle), page torn
from a Japanese pulp fiction novel - depicting a taro card -
and a piece of wood broken off from the dresser in my studio.

Context: A moment of opportunity, the elements in front of me
on the desk or on the floor as I was cleaning after another
piece I just had been working on almost arranged themselves.
They were there, I was there. Suddenly, IT was there.

What’s in it for me? I like the composition, the linkages, boxes
within boxes within boxes. I like the wood, the way it doesn’t
fit but does, the way it sits under and points out and sings
its fibrous song in harmony with all the rest of it. I like the colors.

The tarot card, Gabriel blowing his horn, the dead arising.
That story. The notion of story, stories within stories within stories:
bible story on a tarot card in a novel in an artifact from a Friday afternoon
in the life of a man telling his story, after a fashion. The picture demanding
judgement of its own, from which other judgements will necessarily be made.

Is it a work of art? If so, of what degree? Sufficient to justify time spent on it
that might have been spent more fruitfully? Is it enough? And if it isn’t, then
what? This is the way it goes: we start where we are, we spiral out, we soar,
we return, we settle, we sleep, and dream, images unfolding in our minds.