Part II - Less is more

I had the whimsical thought about whether Basho, or any of the great haiku writers, ever got a little carried away, ended up with 19 syllables, and just couldn’t let go of two.

I heard a comedy writer propose giving his students one hundred dollars for every word they left out of a joke.

Over many years I visited Shotei Ibata-san, a master calligrapher in Kyoto. After being trained in traditional calligraphy, he broke out into action calligraphy in the 1970s. In one sweeping motion, moving his brush dipped in sumi ink, he would create a finished interpretation of an idea or word. His brushes might be small or more than half his size. He befriended action painters, like Sam Harris, and Shotei spoke of how the painters would fill their canvases, every part of it. Shotei encouraged them to pull back, leave blank spots, negative space, places for the eye to rest.

During the pandemic I studied pottery. After throwing a piece on the wheel, trimming it, putting it through a first bisque firing in the kiln, you then get to decide how to glaze it before the final firing. The final firing would finish, we would gather for the grand reveal, and there would sit my pieces, overdressed. A little of this glaze, way too much of that glaze, and in the end it was like wearing a few extra scarves when one touch of color would have been quite nice.

Years ago when we used slide projectors for our presentations, the slide carousels, the round trays you would put on top of the projector, would hold 80 or 140 slides. Why is it that every presentation had a full carousel of slides? Instead of thinking about what you wanted to say, and then selecting the right number of images to convey your talk, let’s say 64 or 112, the trays were filled, which padded the talk with 20% fat.

Do you know anyone who shows their photographs or paintings or art, and talks and talks and talks? I am in the gallery, or auditorium, looking at the art, and the artist is telling me “This photograph is from the place I met my wife 30 years ago. We’ve been going there . . .” Please don’t. “This is one of the dahlias from my garden. It’s an unusual variety because of the color. Most dahlias. . . “ Please stop. “I made this with my iPhone.” It doesn’t matter.

We are drifting. It should be about the art, not the person. The backstory is usually of no interest to anyone, except perhaps a few friends. Patient friends. Look at our eyes. Are they glazing over as we keep looking at how empty our wine glasses are?

In the words of Gandhi, only speak if it improves upon the silence.

Less is more.

Photograph ©Eddie Soloway