Mendacity

In the movie, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Burl Ives asks his son Paul Newman, "Do you smell that powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity?"  The two of them have just finished a powerful discussion about the mendacity in their own lives that has kept them apart.   After an agreement between Big Daddy to Brick, "I've got the courage to die, if you have the courage to live."  Father and Son now rejoin the family group freed from their own struggle with mendacity.  Big Daddy now sees mendacity alive in all the other members of his family, and asks, "Do you smell it, Brick?  That powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity?"   The film moves along with each family member uncovering the mendacity that has wedged this family apart seeking healing by uncovering the truth.  A final revelation from Maggie the Cat that she is pregnant seems to be the ultimate gift of healing and new life to a tortured family unit.  Yet, Maggie thanks Brick for keeping her secret (her lie) when they are alone in their bedroom.  

Is there a great lie?  Is there a great liar?



Or can man not help himself; like Jessup screamed from the witness stand, "You can't handle the truth."

The crowning achievement of the Creative Advocate was to create in his own image after his own likeness.  An ability to stand in full awareness of truth.  An ability to hear the lie and to reject the temptation.  An active "will" like the Creator himself to "will" for the truth.  For the truth always precedes the lie.  The lie finds life only in the soil of the truth.  The created one must practice perception or fall to deception.  And after that fall the creation truly wrestles with the question, "what is truth?"  Can man communicate to the world; to himself without "spin", without "motive"?

In "willing" to believe the lie, the created one now struggles to determine the truth.  Finger pointing and "blame finding" now fill his conversation.  Egotism surfaces and all consciousness centers on self and self-actualization.  Separated he is alone and adrift.  Acting as the source of his own knowledge; he now is filled with questions and needs direction.  Mendacity not only has taken root but it has flowered as well.  The fruit has yielded confusion.  The Old Testament Prophet Jeremiah states, " I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walks to direct his steps."

If man is rooted in mendacity, how can he know truth?

The Dark Side of imagewerx

Some perceptive readers have noticed that within the article "The Creative Core"; "Imagewrex" appears capitalized at times and at other times it appears "imagewerx".  This is not a mistake or an oversight. There is a dark side to imagewerx.

 When humankind was placed in exhibition, he bore all the marks of the creator's hand.  Yet, while humankind was free he was not autonomous.  This wonderful creation still received, moment to moment, the influence of the creator's touch.  Much like the artist that works with clay or stone.  The hands could still hold influence over the artist's object.  The artist and the object harmonized in a creative ballet; that witnessed the object's beauty and creativity while still exhibiting the creative touch of the craftsman hands.  (Not unlike a gifted musician performing on a musical instrument.)

The creative object was free to be all that it was created to be; but it was not free to be autonomous, it should not usurp the artist's intentions.   By forming or reforming itself, it no longer took on the creative license of the original creator.  The clay so to speak fashioned itself in its own "image".  In so doing the object no longer reflected the "Image" of the original artist; it now took on the "image" of its own design.  The art now displayed its own "imagewerx".  The dark knight had entered Camelot.

Why Man Creates

Why Man Creates, a Saul Bass, film was released in 1968 by Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp.  It received many accolades, the most prestigious of which was the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, which recognized the value of this film by honoring it with an Academy Award in the category of Documentary (Short Subjects).  The short clip presented here represents its dynamic creativity.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=penl-HYfMCg
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063804/
http://www.pyramidmedia.com

The Creative Core

At the heart of every individual is a core of beliefs.  A fundamental truth that shapes and sustains each person's everyday existence.  It is from that core of beliefs that the individual interprets the world around them and their relationship to that world.  "imagewerx" is the term that defines the core of beliefs for this blog.

 How do you interpret "imagewerx" you may ask?  At the core of my beliefs is the fact that mankind is not the object of time and chance; but rather the creative expression of an artistic personality.  An individual artist that chose to express himself in a way that best depicts his own reality.  Thus mankind was made in an Image and after the Likeness of the creative personality.  

Mankind bears the Image of his creator.  To see man in his original creative expression is to look upon the Image of the artist himself.  A created self portrait.  Man's purpose in life is to exhibit his personal Image.  To display in the gallery of all created marvels the personal expression of the divine creative artist.  So, man bears an Image, he reflects an Image, and he creates within that Image.  Mankind is the Imagewerx.