Beyond the Box: Beyond the Box, #1

By David L. Laing

Beyond the Box is a collection of forty-eight illustrated essays from the boundless creative mind of David L. Laing. You may encounter any topic in these pages. From shoes to God's head, each idea is serendipitous. It may be mystical or whimsical, material or metaphysical. Always enthralling.

 

Each essay is paired with a hand-inked drawing in David L. Laing's distinctive style: often coiling, sometimes angular, maybe fractal, always a bit otherworldly. Journey with this visionary artist and writer to realms Beyond the Box.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cosmic Art Center
• Release date: Mar 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781637325094

Book preview

Beyond The Box

Beyond The Box

Volume One

David L. Laing

Cosmic Art Center

Copyright © 2021 by David L. Laing

All illustrations hand-inked by David L. Laing

Cover design by Adam Douglas Heyes and Marilyn E. Dillon

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All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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Published in the United States of America

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Cosmic Art Center

8903 35th Avenue NE

Seattle, Washington 98115

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Paperback ISBN 978-1-63732-508-7

Ebook ISBN 978-1-63732-509-4

To all those who wonder, Box? What box?

Contents

Foreword

Forever Beginning

Shoes

Is Brown the True Color?

Comfort Zone

Awe

What’s Your Style?

Bee-ing There

The Ink Is Not Yet Dry

Don’t Have

Modern Art: What Is It?

Who Am I?

What’s a Lizard For?

Muse

Rainbow Being

Symmetry

Paper

The Threshold of Pleasure

Caught In The Crossfire

Mysterious Writer

How Many Faces Do I Have?

The Token American

Who Killed the Moment?

Best Friend

Inner Sanctum

Librarian

The Harp in the Box

Psychology

Taking Dictation

Navigation

Strings

The Epic Steps

From Stones to Schools

The Truth

We Don’t Know Till We Know

Belle of the Ball

Maps

The Gold Road

Planes

Threshold Guardians

The Other Road

Dark Horse

Harp Out of the Box

God’s Head

Pipes

Nazca Nouveau

Cymbals to Symbols

Bellwether

The Golden Trumpet

About the Author and Artist

Purchasing Artwork and Connecting with David L. Laing

Also by David L. Laing

Foreword

Beyond the Box is a collection of forty-eight illustrated essays by David L. Laing.

Sounds prosaic, right? Yet you’ll find there’s nothing ordinary about these articles and drawings. That’s because they’re from the boundless creative mind that is David L. Laing.

You may encounter any topic in these pages. From shoes to God’s head, each idea is serendipitous. It may be mystical or whimsical, material or metaphysical. Always enthralling.

And so, too, are David’s drawings His unique style is often coiling, when it’s not angular, maybe fractal, always a bit otherworldly.

You won’t see over-arching themes in these essays, or continuity from one to the next, or groupings by similarities. There’s variety, there’s diversity, there’s divergence, there’s incongruity. The linking principle, the order if you will, is randomness.

David Laing is a visionary, an artist and writer of unlimited thought. He doesn’t just think outside the box, for him there is no box. Come, join David as he explores realms Beyond the Box.

Beyond The Box

1—Forever Beginning

Forever Beginning

It is the element, the head, the embryo and the rudiment, that commence an action or the act of doing which begins anything. This is the beginning of the story, not the ending of an allegory, its origin, the state of being original. We are that portion that begins our importation. We are from afar, once deported yet somehow important. Though common, we are value, a quality of the venue, both here and there, rare and true.

There are only 48 titles in the box, just titles, only beginnings. The next box is named started. The first inning is the beginning of the game. I is the dawn of the name. Genesis began with Isis. She was the root, the source of the first step made by her foot. The rise of square one is where we are. You cannot disguise this rise. It is the opening presentation, the point of departure, the crossing of the threshold.

The real excitement is not just in the doing but the beginning to do. It is the maiden speech well within our reach. In long clothes with extended arms, reach for the embryo, that O, the zero that ends with itself. The fundamental head is the fountainhead, the quintessence of where to head. Go for broke by making the initial stroke. Begin the line on the line and in line with your line. The outline is in here. The outpost is the beginning host. The borderline and sideline is the perimeter of the field you are playing in.

The entrée is step one before the entrance of the dance. Welling, emanation, effluence and effusion, men are not in a state of delusion. Springing and radiation emerging from the conception. The wellspring begins in the well before being drawn up. The pail is full, succeed or fail. We draw the rope that was found in the well, as deep as it is profound.

The amateur begins while the connoisseur finishes. Begin for the love of it, and continue in love with it. There is an end in sight by beginning to catch it right. The end of a book marks the beginning of a fresh brook to hook. To finish you cannot end, but keep on beginning with no bend in sight. Each end is a start, each art a beginning and each bend another friend.

Begin with illustrations laid out like a storyboard for film instructions. This aid will help to get paid. Each picture is its own beginning, just as each beginning is an illustration, a signature. Sign off, to design on the road a sign that runs through. Manage the age, or will it age the man. To be always in the midst of a struggle where you can’t sell the depths of a well, just buy into its wealth.

It takes much more energy and effort to begin a book, a class or a journey than to end the last act. Once the engine is started and the vehicle moving, it is easier to keep on shoving. Start contains the word art because art plays a major part. Honing the moving craft is keeping the sails raised fore and aft. We are that ship launched, its sails full, the oars extended to pull, as the wheelhouse with the rudder steers through the lull.

2—Shoes

Shoes

Walk-on or walkabout, the shoe either makes the trail a success or helps it fail. Yet even barefoot, it is the no shoe that gives the feet inspiration at the track meet. The sandal is the halfway house that keeps us grounded and is not there to protect us from a vandal. Fishermen wear them like shoes, which is no breaking news. Soldiers tread in heavy boots to break through new territory buried in jungle shoots.

Some shoes slip on, others have laces, while a few are displayed to show off the foot’s graces. Kick straight ahead, with the toe targeting an adversary as primary foe. One size never fits all, nor does it always match the height short or tall.

Fitting female feet as an overall shape measuring out the size listed on the sheet. The left is never the same as the right, but shoes when worn will soon get it right. The foot doesn’t shrink upon command, yet an iron shoe can get lucky with the right race horse in high demand.

You can know immediately if it’s a fit, like a pair of gloves made of silk, leather or knit. The whole point of ballet slippers is to be on point. They don’t slip on when kneeling in silhouette, tied to the whirling spin of the pirouette. Tie the knot in the lace and gently glide through space. A shoe is not a shoe if it comes out of the blue. It’s black like the night when worn with the full moon on track. The crescent-shaped shoe dances to this light by staying in its shadow, keeping out of sight.

Worn out or worn in, the heel is there to maintain even keel.