But is it art? [2]

Spontaneous index card art* was invented on Saturday. By me. See yesterday's entry. Except it's probably better not to use actual index cards but pre-used stock of some sensuous kind, cut down to 3 x 5.

This example is bad enough but possibly bizarre enough to qualify me as one of those isolated, possessed outsider artists. The kind whose strange work is found stuffed in piles under their bed after they die alone.

But the exercise taps into what I'm trying to do with my zazen meditation, which intersects with my growing appreciation of Jack Kerouac's "Belief and Technique for Modern Prose" as a list of zen koans. It's really hard for me to drill into what lies beneath my well-educated, rational, grammatical, good-student, brainiac-self. If I can capture a moment of pure zany gushing now and then, I'm getting into new territory..

I wrote this before I fell asleep Tuesday night:

My free association is not bad till I think about it -- my conscious brain wants to edit & censor & make it perfect before it comes out. No credit if you edit -- the Zen of it -- join the flow -- be in the river -- don't shiver -- don't be slow -- do what Kerouac said: "Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind." The ken of Zen -- I ain't quite been there yet (what rap artists can do & what I feel only a sliver of). When I get there I'll let you know.

[Punctuation added.]

10.25.07

* Worn manilla envelope cut to 3x5 (soft texture). Rhyming. Free association. Forcing my pen to draw. Rummaging for the colored pencils, which I've never used.