DANIEL CLARKE x
ANDREW DEMBINA
MOUNTAIN TIME
The sky is indecisive.
Blues, whites, and greys
Tumble over one another.
The mountain stands resolute.
One big thing that knows its place.
A million plants and trees clamber up,
Green in sap and thorn
They tumble and fall into the valley
In the great slow-motion waterfall of the forest.
The human world encroaches.
Structures lean in from all sides.
Ahead and behind me in space and time.
They are not-quite-hidden reminders
That must I choose to be here.
To read the mountain
To find its colours in my little box.
Spending the spare change pennies of my time.
Following the contours.
Chasing the sky.
Mountains do not make choices.
They are where they are.
They do what they do.
I decide a shape or a line
And make it stay.
The mountain will always be there.
But in the blink of an eye
I am done.
___
DRAW FOR ME
Draw for me.
Art is a question.
At its most basic level it asks:
Is there anybody out there?
“I think therefore I am” offers a lonely vision.
If you can’t trust your senses, if nothing out there is real, then you are alone in the cage of your skull.
When we create, we reach across the void.
Draw for me.
Trying to reach someone, anyone, who might understand some part of who we are.
“This is me. This is how I see the world.”
Do you recognize this?
Does this make sense to you?
In collaboration we are dancers.
Will you lead? Or will I?
Too polite and we will leave our chances on the table, flapping like stranded fish.
Too dominant and we will butt like goats.
I do not know the answer.
All I can do is reach out across the void
To you, my dear artist:
Show me who you are.
Show me what I need to know to understand your joy, your pain,
Your impatience, your rage.
And I will try to show you mine.
Draw for me.
___