ganstudios.com is in a constant state construction. that matches the state of activity life provides for us. in the same way as chipping away at a block of granite eventually exposes a shape, ganstudios.com gradually emerges from the data surround as a form. much of art is framed and hung on walls. ganstudios.com is framed in code and published on a website. same effect different dog.
whether you like what you see or not is a very personal narrative and really has very little to do with me. either the site's shape has meaning or not depends on what the viewer brings to the conversation. while i hope something resonates, if it doesn't the site won't disappear as a result.
the site and most of what's in it is based upon my assumption that humans can know very little for certain. our language and our culture and our reality are purely metaphorical. as horowitz says: it means that because it means that, but that doesn't mean it is that. wow. that horowitz is a knee slapper. in the end our culture is a huge pile of comfy metaphors bound together by the constraints of physical reality which itself isn't as stable as we all want to believe.
i have worked in silence for a long time. i think i was living under the romantic illusion that i was a monk. i managed to accomplish this even with a family buzzing around me and a job making demands. i thought i was - but i wasn't. i was simply a guy trying to figure out what it was all about and pretending, even with a kid sticking a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich in my eye, to be alone.
ganstudios.com is a complilation of years of thought. that interested me more than material accumulation. when others would talk about their fishing stories i would go home and chip away at my block of granite. the result is ambivalent. i've yet to find a hook substantial enough to hang meaning on.
there's some interesting stuff in the site, least i think so. there's some ego stuff for sure and some deliberate non-ego. i do believe there's a lot of creativity in the pages. that's something i not only need to do, it's something i can't prevent. it's the air i breathe. that's what i thought was the monk part of me. in reality it was simply my particular way of interacting with the data surround. nothing special in the same way that being 6 foot 1 isn't special.
alan watts suggested that too often we allow our past to steer us. his view is that the wake of a boat tells us where we've been and really shouldn't tell us where we're going. i like that metaphor a little. even though it's only partially true. the past isn't that easy to shake.
i've been a logger, a carpenter, a small business-man, a parent, a cabinet maker, a teacher, truck driver, and a lot of other things. Through it all i've read, written and painted. that's my wake and regardless of watts' analogy it has steered the creation of my life, this website and the blog that accompanies it.
i consider the site to be a piece of art using html and css rather than canvas and acylic. because i know so little of coding, the site is a continual struggle in progress and grows as my understanding of language develops.
the accompanying WAT blog is me talking to myself in another way. only instead of doing the talking in my head, i'm doing it on-line. my daughter says some of the material WAT contains is sad. i contend that some of what everybody does is sad. we bring meaning to the table and it doesn't exist until we think it does.
anyways, the sculpture isn't done yet. i've written, painted, worked, danced with ideas, even sung a little, and ended up with a work in progress. take a peak. i hope you enjoy wandering through the pages. if you like something, leave me a note on the contact page. or even better, take a look at my WAT blog. thanks for dropping by. gord.
© 2013
ganstudios.com