“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(“Something picked at random, as from a grab bag, you see.” This could refer to the way I picked the canvas which furnished the object. On that particular visit to the Art Shop I wasn’t looking for linen canvas, never having bought any there; indeed, thinking the shop didn’t stock it to begin with. I had bought other items, and was on my way out when I saw a piece of canvas tucked in a corner, quite wrinkled and obviously a remnant.

(“Stubble, or stumble.” Here we think Jane was trying to get across the idea of stubble meaning texture, which the canvas of course possesses. This woven texture was another reason for my buying canvas, rather than smooth boards for instance, such as Masonite.

(“And a connection with, I believe, the same number of large colored squares or rectangles. Rather brilliant. The color red among others, and yellow.” It seems here that Jane referred to the purpose for which I bought the canvas—to paint on. Some of my recent work has been in the abstract vein, also, and incorporates squares, angles, etc., some of them in brilliant primary colors. Actually I have not painted any pictures on the specific batch of linen which furnished tonight’s envelope object; but I have painted on other canvas of a comparable texture, etc., and which was prepared in the same manner. Association thus could be at work. There could be other connections also.

(“Connection with an old car.” Jane feels this refers to a young man, Tom, who works at the Art Shop where I bought the canvas which furnished the object. Jane often runs errands there for me, and Tom, a framemaker, often waits on her. Tom has an old sports car, and not long after I had bought the canvas, he described the car to Jane on one of her visits there, detailing his troubles with it, etc.

Again as with master events, we’re dealing with a different framework of action entirely, where the Mona Lisa is “more real” than the physical properties that compose it, which is not to deny the validity of the canvas, say. But to discuss Seth or Seth’s ideas primarily from the true-or-false framework is the same thing as considering the Mona Lisa only from the validity of the physical properties of paint and canvas; very, very limiting. [...]

[...] As the Mona Lisa is “more real” than, say, a normal object or the canvas that composes it, so is all good or great art more than its own physical manifestation. [...]

[...] There is before you a canvas, and you are working in all areas of it at once. In your terms each part of the canvas could be a time period — say, a given century. You are trying to keep some kind of overall balance and purpose in mind, so when you make one brushstroke in any particular portion of this canvas, all the relationships within the entire area can change. No brushstroke is ever really wiped out, however, in this mysterious canvas of our analogy, but remains, further altering all the relationships at its particular level.

[...] Since this is our analogy, we can stretch it as far as we like — far further than any artist could stretch his canvas (leaning forward humorously). Therefore, there is no need to limit ourselves. The canvas itself can change size and shape as the artist works. [...]

[...] It hadn’t sounded like him—only her, speaking somewhat haltingly and not too clearly as she lay flat on her back in the hospital mud bed, with her broken right arm held snugly against her ribs and chest by the blue and white canvas sling. [...]

(11:25.) The idea of the large canvas was excellent. [...]

[...] They use the immediately-past life as a canvas, and with the same “canvas,” they attempt a better picture. [...]

Artists use perspective on a flat surface to try to capture there the feelings and experiences of depth that are, in themselves, alien to the flat canvas, or paper or board. [...] An ant crawling upon such a canvas would hasten across just another flat surface, and be quite unaware of the inviting avenue and any painted fields or mountains.

[...] Once again she’d spoken with what seemed to be considerable effort as she lay on her back, her head propped up on several pillows, her right arm swaddled closely in the blue and white canvas sling that held it close to her side and across her lower chest. [...]

[...] You have often tried to control your painting, rather than to let it go through you onto the canvas. [...]

[...] You put up barriers to protect the creative self from the exterior world, which you fear would destroy it, and from the interior world, for left alone the creative self might just slam paint upon a canvas without discipline, or might show more than we are willing to show. [...]

[...] You did not want to settle for work of which others might approve, and get stuck at a certain level, even for money’s sake; but you wanted to pursue your art in private, and you wanted it colored by its own vaster canvas of psychic endeavor.

(Section of linen canvas practically identical with that used as object in the 84th envelope experiment in the 319th session for February 13,1967.)

[...] With a smile:) When you want to express darkness you might paint your canvas with black instead of your magic white (a la William Alexander), so that then the use of lighter colors upon it will indicate more clearly the quality of light, at least for the painting’s purposes. [...]

[...] It does not regard art as a game, exactly, but it does not expect the same rules to apply, either, to a painted apple on a canvas and a real one. [...]

[...] I “drew” a rough analogy with painting (to make a pun): The artist may start working on a blank canvas, yet each physical brush stroke he or she delineates is built upon inner knowledge and experience; in the painting these qualities are objectified in new combinations, which in turn add further to the artist’s conscious comprehension. [...]

[...] He tries to project them upon his canvas or board. [...]

[...] For a surface I chose a cardboard canvas-covered panel made by one of the well-known artist’s manufacturers. [...]

[...] Imagine a blank canvas or board, or blank framed picture if you prefer. [...]

(11:44.) The features in a portrait are painted on canvas or board, but your soul is not painted on your body. [...]

[...] The trees in his painting, being artificial reproductions, do not undergo the same physical changes, even while the atoms and molecules that compose the canvas itself, and all the pigments, constantly themselves change.

(I glued a square of the burlap to a wood panel with a very white acrylic gesso that is used to prime artists’ canvas, then used a razor blade to trim off the excess around the edges after drying. [...]