Beauty in the Chaos
Sometimes things don’t go as expected... I had just finished a beautiful Soft pastel set of blues and the box suffered a “little accident”...
It is painfull to see your work smashed into little pieces, but in some way, it also has a certain beauty.
“Cosmos”, Soft pastel pieces, ©photo by Mamut Pastels.
It´s hard to stop watching and look away. A colorist micro cosmos is showing to you and your brain is not quite sure if this is good, bad, if it hurts or how you should react… It is in some poethic way the best representation of the soft pastels escence. The beauty of the color and the fragility of the pastel bars itself.
“Broken”, Baby Mamut Pastels ©photo by Alain B. Mamut, 2021
This, like so many other things, represents an oportunity of change. An challenge of adaptation to the new situation. I read not long ago about the "Wabi Sabi philosophy", Wabi Sabi is a complexe therm, but it would mean somthing like "Wabi"; The elegant beauty of the humble simplicity or how to recognize it. A way to experience spiritual richness away from materialism. And "Sabi"; The passage of time and subsequent deterioration. Sugesting that beauty is hidden from what we see...
“3 Amigos”, Soft pastels on process ©photo by Mamut Pastels, 2021
In a way, Waby Sabi is a lifestyle, where it is conceived that true beauty is not in the perfect, because in reality, perfection does not exist. It is to look at the world as it is with acceptance. This deffinition, under my point of view, fits perfectly for pottery and artisan manufacture, regarding unique objects. Art creations where the imprint of life has left in its path and are now provided of soul and a unique character...
“Fragments” ©Mamut Pastels 2021
This was maybe a Wabi Sabi moment... But more than this, what really amazes me is the change. The change of materials and the transformation. How a powder can be transformed into a stick. A stick into dust or a painting. How broken pieces can be mixed together again into color grains, like an efimeral collage... And then, again into a dough.
“Mixing blues” ©photo by Mamut Pastels 2021
“pigments”, Detail of the mixed colors. ©photo by Alain Mamut Pastels, 2021
This is a process that never stops to fascinate me... Maybe because I was a curious child, always interested in the joy of play with materials and focussed on details, more than in the big picture. Most of the artist I know are big children that still play, in their own way. They constantly learn and feel a fascination for little things, for the experimentation and the changes that materials and life itself can produce.
“A new mixture” ©photo by Alain Mamut pastels, 2021
“Blue Waves”, ©photo by Alain Mamut pastels, 2021
Artists are actually growing in their field while "playing with materials" and this can also be seen as a subconscious way of rebelling, a response to our one-use, throw-away culture ... The process of creation is also a source of tranquility... Focus on the now and forget about the rush and stress in which we live on.
“Diverse shapes”, ©photo by Alain Mamut pastels, 2021
“New life ahead”, ©photo by Alain B. Mamut pastels, 2021
