What's More Ugly than Ugliness

“We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.”

― Pablo Picasso

I’m not sure if I agree with his statement entirely. I do think that the process of art and writing is art, and that it makes us realize truth, but it doesn’t need to be a lie to provoke that. My sense is that the background, the negative spaces, the words left unsaid, the unutterable, the uglies speak more about truth than what’s beautiful, acceptable, and commodifiable. If anything, the very real cannot be contained in a click of a button and processed at a check-out. 

What I mean is that when we fall in love with a song, we might think it’s the notes, the pace, the textures, and we think that’s what we are consuming, and perceive that as the truths/lies content, but it’s also about the pauses and spaces between the notes. Beats require spaces between them, otherwise, they sound like over-presence and the effect becomes muddy. This is felt more directly when we are listening to music live, as the sounds and non-sounds become more spatial and corporal.

So back to the idea that art is lies, it’s not to say that lies do not contain truths, as they often do in some way, but the discussion of ugly complexities can hold multiple truths and lies simultaneously, and it’s helpful to see the space not as a spectrum (two points on a given line), but as a squiggle or amoeba - asymmetrical, changing, veiled from full view, difficult to define, and confusing. There are different possibilities from just truths and lies alone. What do we consider fiction? Speculative works? Even memoirs? I see them more as works that contain positive and negative spaces, Yin and Yang, and to say there’s only truth and lie is binary is a dangerous path to the evils of perfection, which in my opinion is more ugly than ugliness.

More than truth and lies, which centres the creator, as it requires the creator to judge them as so, I am also curious about writing as an act of animacy. A few weeks ago, I shared these words on my IG:

What if the violin, the drum, the piano, the flute are not the instruments, but we are the instruments?

That the words we write are not the expression, but we are the expression?

That the art we make is not the art, but ourselves, along with the longing and the contact with our Source that is the art itself. The thing we typically call art is simply the aftermath, the outcome of that contact.

This means: Artmaking is self-making. The medium / media are calling us to become instruments of profound channeling. 

The Ugly Words Series welcomes us to make kin and ritualize the necessary themes of ugliness, decomposition, rot, grief, and endings, and their intersections with written and shared word, animacy, and the supernatural with clarity, tenderness, and tenacity. Through embodied writing practices that both exorcise what is no longer desired and bring deep healing, we remember our humanness, renew the capacity to freely relate with the Seen and Unseen, make art of who we are, and divine where we are headed.

We’ll be dispelling perfectionism or other unattainable aspects of wellness and spirituality, and instead, grants focus for context and process, supportive writing techniques, powerful esoteric tools, and active collaboration with our intuition and Mystery that is deeply rooted in the realities of daily and big life stresses, pain, and loss, and as a way-through to joy and living creatively.

It’s been a difficult year for so many of us. What’s been saving, preserving, renewing me has been the visual and written creative works I’ve been making. I’m grateful for the pull towards the very real, undeniably there darker archetypes.

We begin on Sunday, October 15 (this Sunday!!)

Here’s what we’ll be exploring in the 6 weeks of UGLY WORDS:

• UGLINESS IS SACRED

  • Pathways to the Holy Uglies

  • Meeting Our Many Endings and Deaths

  • Perfection as Evil, The Rotten as Divine

  • Lusting After Decomposition 

• RECLAIMING THE ROT

  • Rot as Presence

  • Hone the Art of Channeling Creative Rot

  • Grief and Celebration

  • Our Home As Our Witness, As Our Cave

  • Rot Rituals

• WRITING TO WITNESS

  • The Hanged One: Unfamiliar Perspectives

  • Drawing Lines

  • Ugly Together, Beautiful Together

• DECOMPOSITION IN A CAPITALISTIC WORLD

  • When You Feel Unmotivated, Discouraged, or Hopeless

  • Time and Ugliness

  • Clarity Through Mess

  • Guarding Your Energy

• FROM ENDINGS TO CREATE AND RE-CREATE

  • Ugly Texts, Ugly Poems, and More

  • Fantasy as Healer

  • The Ugly as Ugly, the Ugly as Beauty

  • Risk, ‘Failure’, Rejection

  • Finding the Voices You Don’t Yet Speak

• READING TO WITNESS

  • The World: I Was Here, We Were Here

  • Filling in the Colours

DATES

This writing series will be held once a week over the course of 6 weeks spanning October and November 2023 on Sundays from 5-7PM PST. Live Zoom attendance is encouraged, though recordings are also available. The specific dates are:

• Sunday, October 15, 2023

• Sunday, October 22, 2023

• Sunday, November 5, 2023

• Sunday, November 12, 2023

• Sunday, November 19, 2023

• Sunday, November 26, 2023

Sliding scale tuition.

Partial Scholarships available for those needing financial assistance. Proof of financial hardship not required. Just email me at info@shopceremonie.com

We begin this Sunday, October 15. Hope to see you, as we make kin with ugliness.

My love,

Mimi