THE MEANINGS: SELF AS THE OLDEST HUMAN INVENTION

ARC 1 - The Self

This painting began in a scrap yard. The one that was on Howell Mill Rd in ATLANTA. It was called Star Iron & Metal. (RIP)

Me and my best friend, Noochie, used to go searching through piles of “the rustier the better” metal looking for pieces with energy. Pieces that felt like they carried history inside them.

There I found the centerpiece of this painting.

At least…I didn’t know I did.

At the time, I didn’t see a number 1.

I thought it was the broken corner of some old metal frame. Just an interesting shape. A distressed fragment. (That miter in the corner threw me off)

(Illustration of what I thought this bascially all that was left of an old frame)

I kept it.

And for a while it sat in my living room/studio, when I lived in The Cotton Mill, among other scraps from that same trip.

Then one day while staring at the pieces, I remember feeling something subtly trying to communicate with me.

Not verbally. But intuitively. Like something saying:

“Look again.” - So I did.

“Keep looking.” - And then suddenly…there it was.

A “1”.

And once I saw it…I couldn’t unsee it.

That moment changed the entire direction of what I thought I had planned for that piece.

That moment is also illustrated by the single star that sits under the newly recognized “1”. Stars in my work represent ideas, ah-ha moments, moments of inspiration, clarity, and now… spirit guides.

Because the revelation wasn’t just about the object.

It was about me.

At the time, I was standing at the beginning of my own metamorphosis. Trying to consciously understand who I was becoming. Trying to build myself with intention and not as a response ( And I had plenty of shit to respond to - HMNSM covers a lot of that).

Photo: Demetrious “Noochie” Noble
Circa May 2005

So I started studying the symbolism and vibrational quality of the number 1.

And it hit me almost immediately.

Beginnings.
Individuality.
Authorship.
Emergence.

The first declaration of “I.”

At the time, I understood the piece one way. But over the years, my relationship to it evolved.

Which is important to me now. (Particularly after later experiences that clarified the difference between lowercase self and Capital Self.)

Because I no longer see my older works as “wrong” simply because my consciousness evolved beyond the meaning my then lowercase self wrapped them in.

I see them as records of my awareness in motion. Evidence of my becoming.

“Self As The Oldest Human Invention”
Acrylic and Found Objects on Wood

Some works came from the lowercase self trying to understand itself. Some works came from the Capital Self leaking through the lowercase self before I had the discernment for nuance about what I was sensing.

And some works exist somewhere between the two.

That tension is where the energy is.

Looking back now, I realize the 1 was always there. The object itself never changed. What changed… was my ability to perceive it. And I think a lot of life works that way.

Sometimes meaning reveals itself in stages. (See HMNSM:THE PREQUEL EP VII). Sometimes we encounter truths long before the words form to make it make sense.. Sometimes becoming is not about adding more noise to the construction…but quieting the incessant declarations of lowercase self long enough to hear Capital Self speak.

And what I am learning is that the deepest parts of ourselves are not invented.

They are encountered.

I would later have an experience that made the distinction between lowercase self and Capital Self impossible for me to ignore.

As always…In divine time.