Erika Koenig Workman

At Bean and Beyond in Steveston, in between checking websites and waiting for data transfer I read ART revolution by Lisa L. Cyr where she writes about transcending boundaries:

“From 1908-1914 two pioneers; Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque worked collaboratively in search of an alternative form of expression, a different approach to seeing and interpreting the world. With their efforts, Cubism, an artistic vision that allows for multiple  viewpoints to be shown simultaneously, was born…..In addition the Cubist movement gave birth to a more tactile approach to picture-making….under Cubist theory, pictorial reality became multidimensional expressed in multimedia format.”

I used to chide myself severely for not ever settling on a particular medium. It seemed I could not quell the desire to join together numerous elements to make a picture. I understood Marcel Duchamp‘s, Nude Descending Staircase since I had experienced fragmentation, culminating in 10 moves by the time I was 13. So Duchamp’s depiction captured well-known feelings that I had contained for most of my childhood. That life was dubious and unstable accompanied by a haunting notion of unpredictability. Searching for meaning in a world of chance occupied me which later helped develop full-blown existentialism that I chose as my world view for a period of time.

Underground shifting is about perceptions in motion where things are placed in a random order to create something new or unknown. It is subjective to the last degree which is largely what gives it appeal.

I end up feeling that when change occurs in life it might look somewhat like this. Non-sensical and heavy laden with an inkling of meaning or nothing in particular at the same time, it is somewhat unsettling as change takes place and very often mentally painful.

With 5 women and 7 men at UAPICBC, I sit in the shape of a circle to redefine or refine a path, a way that I have been going. I am challenged and inspired to look further than my immediate path by listening to a person’s story and by being willing to be changed.

At the end of the day it may not all make sense like Underground Shifting yet what is important is to keep your on the level path, even if you are on the loose shoulder slipping a little.

Eventually you will notice an order occurring and hit a point when you see clearly; an isometric design in the midst of frayed disorder.