Meditation on a Common Object

October 25th, 2004

My teacher calls that thing a desk. There is one lonely chair tucked into it, but that thing is really more of a table. I like the idea of a table--it is more of a gathering place, imbued in ritual. Families share meals around a table. Unconscious bodies are laid out on tables and either cut or sewn by students or surgeons. Things are sacrificed and examined on tables. Tables try very hard to remain free of clutter, unlike desks. This table, especially in the context of New York City, represents precious square footage--it screams to be “put upon” by teachers and students alike. I want to fill it with books and brushes, like the surfaces of the tables in my studio--to make it a large warm vat where ideas and plans and history can sit and stew, simmer. There is a piece of crusty bagel crammed under a leg of this table. Reminds me of the dining room table at my mother’s house--no, the bagel wouldn’t be there, the dog would have scooped up that morsel immediately. Maybe if I set out placemats some friends will ioin me for lunch, and they would know that the word “morsel” is on my list of words that creep me out. Maybe if I put a crafty autumnal/halloweenish centerpiece there, we can celebrate the passage of another season. But this table isn’t so lucky. It is cold and scratched, a rectangular void surrounded by white walls of rectangular void that hold together a room of transcience. A kind of limbo, a coming and going of bodies and thoughts--not really anyplace at all.