One in the Sameness, Molly McCall

My current series, “One in the Sameness” revolves around the theme of a garden landscape and is influenced by literary sources that have both triggered memory and activated my creative mind.

“One in the Sameness” explores a dialog between botanical forms and materials, in particular vintage books, and attempts to incorporate a sensory level to form a “felt” memory- something tangible and tactile, similar to what an object can evoke.

Vintage books have long been a material source in my art making and I am drawn to the way in which they convey humanistic qualities. The covers, spines, and pages, worn by time and hands, seem to connect us to ourselves and to others.

Likewise, this series explores the garden as a metaphor for memory where disparate plants/flowers/things can be transformed and unified through materials, color, and form.

The inspiration for “One in the Sameness” comes from several literary influences:

Jorge Luis Borges’ poem “Simplicity”, in which the setting of a garden is crafted into a poetic metaphor for acceptance, belonging, and the “oneness” that can be found in unifying randomness and opposites.

“A Child’s Garden of Verses” by Robert Louis Stevenson, one of the first books I can remember, remains as one of the greatest inspirations for daydreaming and make-believe in the childhood garden of my memory.

The eloquent quote by Virginia Woolf, “Arrange whatever pieces come your way”, yet another inspiration for how a variety of random things can coalesce into something new and beautiful.

Please clcik on image to see a different view.

Perch © Molly McCall

SIMPLICITY

Jorge Luis Borges

It opens, the gate to the garden
with the docility of a page
that frequent devotion questions
and inside, my gaze
has no need to fix on objects
that already exist, exact, in memory.
I know the customs and souls
and that dialect of allusions
that every human gathering goes weaving.
I’ve no need to speak
nor claim false privilege;
they know me well who surround me here,
know well my afflictions and weakness.
This is to reach the highest thing,
that Heaven perhaps will grant us:
not admiration or victory
but simply to be accepted
as part of an undeniable Reality,
like stones and trees.