Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. — Voltaire

Nothing [Panel II of The Nothing Triptych] » 20”x30” » Click image for larger view.Perhaps because for the first time I say what I mean and mean what I say, Nothing, the second panel of The Nothing Triptych, is arguably (though I’d argue not “inarguably”) the most obvious of any of the pieces I’ve posted so far.

As I worked through the challenges presented by the first triptych and then the second I quickly found myself questioning what it is I might possibly have to say on a continuing basis through subsequent pieces. With the intent of this whole project (i.e., Wrath66) being to evolve as a designer, a writer and a thinker it’s important to me that in everything I produce I’m making the effort to express something of substance – however thin or indistinct the ultimate shape or structure of the stuff. The answer to what turned out to be a short-lived dilemma came in the form of a long held (though sometimes loosely) belief of mine (by way of my boy Socrates) coming to the fore and demanding to be expressed unequivocally.

I found the notion of acknowledging this elementary element of my admittedly mutable belief system – particularly when coupled with the idea that informs the first panel – liberated me from another chunk of “designer’s block”. My hope is that in unambiguously establishing what I know I don’t know and what truths are mine to convey I might have an easier time of articulating my uncertainties more assuredly.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. — Sir Francis Bacon