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In celebration of stockings

So, what, when all is said and done, is a stocking, and what are hose? And what is it that makes stockings so special?

Hose, of course, is a simple matter. Hose is a pipe. Functional, like a garden hose. A stocking, on the other hand, is a flat single piece of fine material, shaped to the form of a woman's leg, and then folded over and stitched together where the edges meet.

The seam in a stocking is not a decoration, it is part of the manufacturing process.

Part of the beauty of the stacking lies in the fact that the mesh is an open net, the weave of which appears more and more dense as it wraps around the form until it makes a fine black outline describing the contour of the limb.

That delicate veiling of the skin which creates that greatest of beauties; mystery. Mystery deepened by the hidden nature of the underwear, lost and revealed by the swirl of skirt and scarf and the sense of fine grooming and delight in the senses, and most of all, the flash of pale skin above the intense, dark stocking tops.

Daring to dream

Once I saw Venice, I was concerned, my dream might be lost forever; so I put it down on canvas, where it could live, side by side with the images of the real.

In the end the two are one. Reality is dream and dream is reality.

Artists are dreamers. Some say seers, even visionaries. They see that which is hidden, they see the truth. What we see in our inner vision, is created. It is created in the moment of seeing, not only in imagination, but in reality.

My garret in Paris

Imagine the most beautiful place in the world. This for one year, was my home, my garret.

Go to Google Earth. Rotate the world until you find the Seine. Follow the river towards Paris. As you get to the heart of the city, where the river is divided in two by the Isle de la Cite, look up at the first building after the park. Go towards the back of the building and find the service stairs. Push the light switch and start up along the narrow spiral staircase, until about the 3rd floor, where the light goes out. Feel your way to the glow of the next llight switch, turn it on, and continue upward past the floors of the wealthy Parisians, up and up beyond the servant quarters in the attic, up under the very roof, and into a passage, narrow as a mineshaft, to the third door on the left.

Enter through the low door and open the small, low window, mounted in the sloping roof to look out over the roofscape of Paris, down onto the great artists' studios, over the river, beyond the Notre Dame, and into infinity. This was my home for one year, not the only garret I lived in, but the site one of the happiest and most meaningful periods of my life, living on one cup of coffee, one baguette, one orange, and one square of cheese a day.

A good friend suggested that if I disliked the materialistic art world so much, I could always live in a garret. Money cannot buy this.

All the money in the world cannot buy you this. The price is having nothing and wanting nothing.

Pearls and pots of gold

7:23. In front of my car, in the mist over the mountain, a faint rainbow, so faint that I could hardly be sure; then it slowly lit up. I heard music, "Glory glory glory, Lord god almighty..." the rainbow, near vertical and only a short arc, curved down to a point just to the right of the road, the Naval Base at Simon's Town, my destination for the moment.

The business of the artist is truth and beauty. It is a narrow and a difficult path; a joyful one, but a tough one. If we put our art at the disposal of commerce, we are no longer artists but merchants. Nobody can serve two gods.

At the end of the rainbow lies a pot of gold, we are told. It is impossible to reach the end of the rainbow, and the promise of gold is a false promise. With your back to the sun, draw a line, from the sun, and extend it through yourself. Directly before you, with this line as its axis, lies the rainbow. This is the treasure of the rainbow, that it binds us to God with its circle of beauty. The treasure of the rainbow is not at its end, but at its centre, your soul, the seat of consciousness and joy.

Website

http://artistvision.org/

Workshops

For details on workshops and classes in Cape Town and Europe, click here

State of freedom

You are the richest person in the world, owner of Microsoft, Virgin Airlines, and Buckingham Palace, the lot. There is one small proviso, though: you cannot exploit (or employ) any other person. What now is your true wealth? Soon you will move out of your palace into the gardener's cottage, where you can maybe keep a cow or two, and home school your children. If you are so inclined you will paint, or make music, or write, or make simple furniture.

This is the natural state of wealth. All else depends on the work and input of other people.

The art of Ryno Swart