Empty Pages

If you've ever taken an art class, chances are, you have been taught to notice negative space. Maybe, you've taught yourself or recognized it accidentally at some time when your mind was left to play ungoverned. The term and its definition could be new to you, and in truth, the two don't mesh as neatly as one might expect. Negative space is the blank part of the composition. It comprises all the unmarked territory on the canvas, the empty piece of the picture. By calling it negative, we are expressing that this is the part without. No line, no form, no active participation of the artist. However, as I've said, the term is deceptive. In recognizing negative space, we are seeing the shape of what isn't there. The artist comes to know the weight and texture of those absences and respects that what the artist doesn't do can be as powerful as what they do.

Once you unlock this idea, you start to sense the spaces between all things. Negative space is not limited to visual arts. It is the rest in the music, the pause in the dialogue, the stillness in the dance. Beyond the art, or perhaps at the base of it, negative space occurs out in the world as distances and depths. Physics tells us most of reality is an absence of things, the holes between subatomic particles. The concept reflects in our lives as well. We sleep between days. We wait for things to happen.

Lately, you may have perceived an absence in this blog. I try to write a couple of times a month, depending on what's on my mind and what lessons life is giving me. Though I try not to fill the empty space with mindless chatter, I do feel a certain call to offer some insight on a semi-regular basis. After all, communication is what writing is for.

In my own rambling through others' blogs, I sometimes find myself on the other side of the equation. A blogger I enjoy goes silent a while, and though I faithfully check for new posts, I am disappointed to find none. Then I remember the lesson of negative space. What isn't said can say a great deal. And so, I imagine the voice whose reflections I have come to appreciate is actually out experiencing the world in order to reflect at a later time. Where there are no words, there is likely movement. What I feel as an emptiness may be full and flourishing.

In a way, this is what has been happening with this blog. My silence here has been balanced by activity in other areas, including other writings. In fact, much of my free time has been a steady stream of writing, satisfying that urge for progress I spoke of in my October 22 post. I have packed a few notebooks with scrawled adventures and engaging new characters. I have crafted some interesting fantasies, let the stories swell through tides of plot and watched them crest in satisfying conclusions. I've done good work, if I say so myself; and in this case, saying so myself is entirely appropriate because every one of those stories was written for me.

Of course, I may share some of these works with close friends or family I feel may appreciate them, but none was written with distribution in mind. None has much commercial appeal. My audience was just me. I wrote, and continue to write these stories for my own entertainment. They speak to me specifically - my dreams, my desires, the pieces of humanity that appeal to my curiosity. Though this may seem to be counter to my earlier conviction that art must be shared to be whole, I'm not sure that's the case. In effect, I am both artist and audience here, supplying both halves of the balance. While telling myself the story, I am also listening and discovering more about the authour.

Though some could see this as useless self-gratification, I argue that it is so much more. Though others may not ever see the immediate product of the playing, they may ultimately reap the benefits. By playing with their medium, an artist improves their feel for it, perfects technique, discovers more about themselves and what they have to offer. In a way, the negative space, the pages you never see, contribute to the beauty of the ones you do.

This post is neither excuse nor apology for the silences. If you have wondered, then perhaps it is at least something of an explanation. I'm still here. I'll still speak when I have something valuable to offer. Until that time, I hope that you can recognize the value in the empty pages.