Memory

“When something transformative happens, you seldom recognize it at the time. An epiphany, a realization of a realization, is a rare occurrence, like a syzygy. Often years go by, and one day you remember you had read – where did you read it? – the sentence, “We give form to thoughts in order to have them.” Who said this, and when did you see it? A vague image of a page hazily forms in the mind, with two columns – a not-very-good xerox – two-thirds of the way down on the left. You tear your entire library apart looking for it, heart pounding when you think you’re getting close. Where were you living at the time? … You get out all your files from 1983, appalled at what you thought was worth saving that year. Everything but the thing you now want. No time to weed this out now, might need something later. Wasn’t it in the spring? Suddenly, hideous doubt sends the blood to your face: could you have actually had it in your hand this morning? You double back and retrace what you just searched in case it was sitting there in plain view all along. Just when you consciously consult your memory, it plays a thousand tricks. No direct route. We must perform for it the exact set of steps and bows, in precise order.
And we think we are the master of ourselves.”

Elizabeth King, Attention’s Loop (A Sculptor’s Reverie on the Coexistence of Substance and Spirit), 1999.

Form, not Ideas

Auguste Rodin.

“Ideas are not what generates form: form generates ideas. Only one thing counts in sculpture, to express life, and it is expressed only through modelling.”

Heads

Auguste Rodin – on why his statues often had no heads:

“… the head is everywhere.”