Open Call: symbol practice
material entities referencing universal energies (or: I listened to a podcast)
I owe almost everything in this post to Gabi Abrao. But also a bit to my education. And a bit to my urge to write. And a bit to my desire for connection and curiosity towards other peoples minds which made me talk about personal symbols with others and leads me to now send a substack to you.
I hope this urges you to think of your symbolic language. Send me a comment or an email if you like. But rest assured I’ll bring up symbols in our next conversation whether you care or not.
There exist things (we may call them feelings, energies, affect, concepts) that are perceived by multiple people but for which words do not suffice.
Beauty, home, sex, comfort, love, tranquility, whatever
Symbols are material entities (things that exist in a tangible form, such as objects, forms, colors, sounds, scents) that reference these concepts.
Society has accepted certain symbols to be the symbol. Think of the floppy disc for ‘saving’ documents. Think of Marilyn Monroe or pink lacy lingerie for sex.
It should be acknowledged, that these have come to such great significance simply by a few people thinking it makes sense, and then repetition repetition repetition.
To be at ease in this world, it is helpful to remain critical of these symbols, and acknowledge that they aren’t necessarily true, or significant, for you.
Pink lace makes me feel nothing, whereas white cotton with a small ribbon does.
Thinking of, and curating your own symbols, is not only a fun self-investigation, or useful for your creative practice, whatever shape that may take, but also helps you to more easily let go discomfort due to mainstream but to you, meaningless symbols.
I have found it very interesting to think about my own symbols, and am curious for those of others. This is how I would ask you to think of yours:
A symbol is a recurrent material entity that signifies an immaterial thing. Therefor, to find your own symbol, you must only think of something that is repeated in your life, that transports your mind to a specific state (or energy, affect, feeling). A symbol is a vessel for transportation, from the object, to the concept.
Examples: the perfume you wear daily. The song you listen to when you feel the urge to cry. The storefront that you pass by and glance upon on your commute. The shape you draw when you find yourself with a pen in your hand and a spare white space on paper.
For my sister, it’s a pitcher beer glass filled with PG black tea and oatmilk. Zwart met melk. We are in the process of finding what it means, but for now we settled on comfort, safety, rest.
For sighswoon it is hands, the colour cornflower blue, a chair she found on the street, the infinity sign. Her life and livelihood are built around symbols.
For me, I feel like I’m at the very start of my symbol practice, but I have come up with two. The first is the most apparent and potentially the most significant, but I do not yet know what it stands for. The second is more archaic symbolic, since its a shape, but it stands for many things in my life.
I find symbols significant for a view of freedom I respect, namely,
We can think of freedom as having a wide variety of possibilities
But it may just as well be found in
The commitment to a specific thing; a focus
Commitment to my symbols may lead to freedom through focus. I have found myself committed to:
The color red.
I could fill a seamingly endless slideshow with pictures of red objects I have spotted and/or acquired. It became significant to me when I moved out of the house and started decorating my rooms in Spain. I put a red silk fabric over my night light and suddenly everything I acquired was red. My carpet (that lives with Elena in Barcelona still) my milk foamer (it was a 2016 christmas gift and I still use it daily) almost all the clothes I bought during that time (I wrote the following bit in my diary about a guy who described me as a red ink leaking flower:
Now red is everything and I wonder for how much longer this era will last. If I’ll end up with a red kitchen like those in Almodóvar’s films.
Cor Ardent (per coses que glacen el sang)
The burning heart. It is Catalan. It is Antígona. It is studying humanities. It is finding beauty in poetry in a foreign language. It is my first and only tattoo. I have been asked to explain it often and I never feel the need to do so fully. It’s a very symbolic shape and it stands for many significant concepts in my life, that are widely varied.
I’ll close things of by stressing the title. This is an open call. I mean that maybe you’ll want to think of your symbols. If you find it difficult, maybe just think of words you like to use. Go through the alphabet and come up with words for each letter and when a word may indicate a symbol, you will feel it. Do some blind drawing. Look at your bookshelf. Look inside your fridge. They are everywhere. I hope you find it as fun as I did. And remember: discard mainstream symbols that don’t make sense to you. It may help you feel at ease.
xxx
ps okay this is the podcast
Kaas!! For me
Zwart met melleeeek