An essay by Mary Judge

       Feelings awakened in the experience of art become part of it.
            Ideas awakened in the experience of art become incarnate in it.

In thinking about fertility and its relationship to my own work, I thought first of its relationship to my studio practice. What follows here are some ideas from notes made in my journal and extracts of related ideas from a text by Hanak Lovgren in his book entitled "Eisenstein's Labrynth. Aspects of a Cinematic Synthesis of the Arts," Acta Universitatis Stockhomiensis, Stockholm 1996, which I read concurrent with writing this essay.

Otto Rank considered the moment of conception as the "supreme symbol" and the first trauma when contradictory principles of male and female are united into a new being. He saw creative activity as an attempt to achieve immortality in the face of the finitude of the second trauma, that of birth. For Rank, to be born means to understand the connection between birth and death: mythology, religion and art represent non-neurotic efforts to alleviate the anxiety of the severed relationship. Within these forms Rank detected the desire to reconnect with the womb and our preconscious state.

Sergei Eisenstein studied the writings of Otto Rank. His fascination with prenatal existence and birth led him to identify the subconscious desire to return to the womb as the state of "Nirvana"*. He saw "pathos," for him found in all true works of art, a moment when all the elements are in a state of ecstasy, as an example of this return. He believed this state to be a function of specific spatial features related to the embryonic state and to the "moment of illumination" when creation occurs. He became fascinated with womb symbols as structure and symbol, studying the design of the gothic Cathedral, labyrinths, the detective genre and the formulas of the escape artist Harry Houdini. For him the labyrinth was a metaphor for the "predicament" or desire to return of the womb. He uses this metaphor in sets for his films and pointed to the legend of the Minataur as it related to Rank's concepts: Theseus, who slew the Minotaur needed the "clue" (from the Anglo Saxon cliwen, or ball of thread) to solve the mystery of the labyrinth and break the "knot that binds."

In my work I seek to unite old and new forms. I judge the success of work on its ability to qualify on a number of levels including beauty. Beauty is the result of the unity I see ... for me beauty resides not only in the harmony of proportions but also in the elemental, primal forms that connect the work of art with both the intellect and the senses on a profound level: in psychological terms the desire to return to the prelogical state.

In the Japanese languare, "utsukushii" encompasses a similar idea, signifying a concept of beauty felt in the heart, embodied by dark, simple things that have a sublime, moving quality. The "Sabi" of Wabi-sabi aesthetic signifies the beauty of imperfection found in antiquity or primitiveness, a rustic unpretentiousness, simplicity or effortlessness: something rich in historical associations. These are constructs that can be found in nature, and are very different from a Western concept of beauty with its superimposed "ideal". In Zen teaching, beauty is reality, it reveals itself when subject and object merge to form the "essential self."

The concept of "fertility" is connected in various ways with working structures I emply such as the use of a specific structural system as "key"; the transformation through repetition of elements (resulting in "ecstatic forms"); the use of the point as the essential unit and beginning from which things unfold or collapse; the use of a "fold" as a means to generate and regenerate a "chain" of related images. These progressive structures initiate a chain that is a birth or bursting out, an unfolding that is a moment of (sensual) awakening. These approaches reflect a common-sense rather than theoretical approach and reveal my interest in working directly with the process and material of Drawing itself.

       Point + fold opened = repetition
               reflection = transformation conception + birth
                       opening = regeneration, transformation

Art is the creation of form, the transformation of matter. Fertility is the moment of "becoming" when quantity turns into quality.

* Nirvana is defined as the extinction or destruction of thirst or desire; the goal of Buddhism consisting of the escape from the chain of births and deaths and the liberation from all effects of Karma; the real world as opposed to the illusory world.

This essay first appeared in New Observations, Guest Editor Erika Knerr, Summer/Fall 1998 Theme: "Fertility"