Moon Snail Project # 36: To See the Thing

Spiraling whorls of my moon snail shell

“Studying and understanding the ‘Way of Anything’ leads one to understand the ‘Way of Everything.’”
— Barry Behrstock, The Way of the Artist:  Reflections on Creativity and the Life, Home, Art and Collections of Richard Marquis

I like that my moon snail shell connects me to the larger world in ways that I don’t fully understand.  I find the task of looking closely at it and then drawing or painting it very like meditation.  I lose myself for a time.

The Three Goals
by David Budbill, from Moment to Moment: Poems of a Mountain Recluse

The first goal is to see the thing itself
in and for itself, to see it simply and clearly
for what it is.
No symbolism, please.

The second goal is to see each individual thing
as unified, as one, with all the other
ten thousand things.
In this regard, a little wine helps a lot.

The third goal is to grasp the first and second goals,
to see the universal in the particular,
simultaneously.
Regarding this one, call me when you get it.

Moon Snail Shell # 36, watercolor pencil sketch with washes