Onward, Qualify, and Paramount by Michael Moreth
Text by Ryan Fioretti
The blank page asks: what do you see? And then the blank page waits. And we are reminded of what it means to be both nothing and entirely possible, both of which are endless, both of which are the same, and that we are responsible for what comes next. Because the question will remain unanswered; answered; unanswered again, and so we return to the blank page, which is always waiting, as long as we are there to push Onward.
And what is it that we will find when we come to the blank page, and how do we know we've found it? Perhaps it was always there, beneath its question, waiting for resurrection, rebirth, a chance. Dips and dashes and marks that have no meaning until they do, until they change the way we see. And then we understand that there was something there, beneath it, within it, within ourselves, and that it never meant anything at all until we learned how to Qualify.
But what does it mind to find it? The answer, the unanswer, the answer again. Does it give any more meaning to what we do? Because it is all only temporary. It will all fade, break, dissolve; burn. Long after we have left and there is nothing but rock and ash and Time and Space that has no obligation to remember; to measure; to hold. In the absence of it all and what it all was we find no solace. Only a feeling. Fleeting. And yet, in the only moment it ever mattered, it was Paramount. To us.
Michael Moreth is a recovering Chicagoan living in the rural, micropolitan City of Sterling, the Paris of Northwest Illinois USA. His works, Onward, Qualify, and Paramount are watercolors.