DEDICATION

Much of the work collected here began on an empty page, beside my father, in the weeks of his final days, while other works reach back to earlier times, though transformed by marks of his passage. 

More recent works as well are not far from (our) continued relation and the exhibition as a whole is dedicated to my father, whose influence cannot be exaggerated.

Warm, caring, gentle and wise, the best of examples, my father, allan (dad), whose openhearted disposition kept to a laughter … still, may be found.

“STATEMENT”

Poetry suggests itself as a natural approach, but also runs the risk of being considered unhelpful, too vague, or intentionally obscure; in a word, disappointing. 

Yet if one is working through questions and perhaps not able yet to even ask in an appropriate manner … the best one can do is continue such asking until a more recognizable vocabulary lends itself to a possible crossing.

There is a kind of thievery involved, of course, given the delays which keep to the lines of a circle and allows one to say, “I am not myself,” … more certain than the self that persists, though at odds with its clarity.

Staying in touch with what wavers here, a dream comes to mind as a light being shed on a darkness that also is light:

waking up to find one’s feet detached from their legs at the ankle,                 there is not much blood, and the pain which is there seems also            removed from its body.

making way towards the den, i cannot recall how it was, feet in                  hands, through a frenzied calm, i was able to get there, only that,              having arrived and busy with showing and asking … my parents        suggested i sew them back on; and then they back to what they                   were doing, me in the room stitching up and then finding,

the foot of the right on the left.

To keep from this awkward repairing, moving (slowly) to face                           the undoing work ahead …

“don’t worry.”

“don’t worry, no, no.”

“it’s fine.”

“it’ll be fine.”

“just sew the other one on!”   

… said my parents,  aware of the time being lost going back to square one, nevermind the adjustments; a foot in each world (so to speak), giving over to translate the foreign as foreign, consumed by the barest of echoes, with which to inform the collaborative process – even where we may only see one.

And a blur for the sake of clarity.

“Is it even always an advantage to replace an indistinct picture by a sharp one?  Isn’t the indistinct one often exactly what we need?”

                                                                                                                     -- Wittgenstein

“Compare knowing and saying:

          how many feet high Mont Blanc is---

          how the word game is used---

          how a clarinet sounds.

If you are surprised that one can know something and not be able to say it, you are perhaps thinking of a case like the first.  Certainly not of one like the third.”

                                                                                                                     -- Wittgenstein