Majid Kahhak

Zele Community Table
December 19, 2006
4:30-5:40 PM

With Brad Silver, Lou Koleszar, Michael Conniff, and Zele director of marketing Lisa Zimet.

Michael Conniff: People know you as an artist from your studio on Main Street in Carbondale. But I also understand chess is a big part of your life.

Majid Kahhak: We have a chess night every Tuesday night. The club meets on 411 Main Street in Carbondale. It been going in Carbondale for at least seven years, and a couple of years in Aspen.

MC: You were born in Morocco. How did you end up here?

MK: I fell in love with a woman in Europe who happened to be from Colorado.

Lisa Zimet: Is that Ruth?

MK: No. I lived in Brussels for six months, we were hippies for six months. A year after she left I came to see her. We decided to be together for good. I had an eight-year contract to teach French in Brussels. Finally, I would have to reverse the money to spend on schooling. I literally cheated. As a French professor, I had degrees in French literature and education

MC: Were you doing any art?

MK: I was doodling and sketching. I never though I’d be a visual artist. Language was my medium. French was my language. I though I’d explore through French, I wrote some poetry all in French. Everybody had a hobby then: music, harmonica—mine was to just sketch. Everybody did something. I had no training, no nothing, just facility. You just do them to make a little money here and there. Pen and ink in ten minutes. I got into caricature. Just likenesses.

LZ: But now you do portraits.

MK: I do a series of portraitures in oils with lots of color and texture. Even in oils I do it quick. I ensure some physical likeness, but I try to infuse it with essence.

LZ: With [the portrait of my husband] Phillip, you step back and you can see you kept the essence.

MK: You get tired of technicalities, all that is proportions, sizes, and placements—any mistake has to do with one of those. You keep correcting, and I just don’t believe in correcting. We are used to fixing in this culture. Fix, fix, fix we think it’s a high act but it’s not—it’s a functional act. Every now and then you might need to fix something. Conventional art is about fixing. It’s linear, and life is three-dimensional and not linear. Art is really about a state of consciousness. A higher place than ordinary functioning so we have to approach it from that place. At least, it’s not an ordinary level of functioning. Something happens.

LZ: Which is why some of us can’t do it.

MK: Those are just interdictions we put on ourselves. If your life depended on it you could do it. When you’re in your creative dimension, you would be aware something is shifted. In my classes, we systematically try to observe the shifting consciousness so we are aware of the inner workings. We trigger the shifts. A good place is differentiating between being there and not being there. I literally shock them, like if Linda has fallen asleep. She says: “Thank you, you are right, I wasn’t near.” Then you know when you are conscious. Attention versus intention. Attention gets you through this moment, not intention. It’s not philosophical. You chose to paint and are you in touch with it. Everything depends on everything in life and art.

Brad Silver: Are you a doctor?

MK: No, I’m an artist. That’s my endeavor to unlock the mysteries of creativity through art.

BS: Nice.

MK: For me it’s about personal creativity. Creativity in and of itself could be harmful if it’s not applied to that specific life. It’s like a serial killer. Creativity at the service of what? I have read fifty books on creativity. They help you unblock your creativity.

BS: Your subconscious.

MK: If you want to bring Freudian terminology to it.

BS: Someone awakes you and you’ll know.

MK: Relative to this state—what is this state? Are you awake psychically? I’m asleep most of the time, because I’m well-trained. There are situations where I need to be awake. I know English, how to speak.

BS: For the exchanging of information?

MK: Yes, with consciousness. No amount of information will change the world.

BS: How about ESP?

MC: Extra Sensory Perception.

MK: That’s part of the dimension I’m talking about. All life should force you to elevate your being.

BS: Metaphysical.

MK: Yes. Art comes from the metaphysical place.

BS: It’s a different section of your brain.

MK: It’s a receptacle. The brain does nothing. There’s a huge debate whether consciousness manifests through the brain. Inorganic substances affect the way the brain works. Like coffee.

BS: Chemically and electromagnetically. Psychologically and Psychicly.

MK: There’s way to unlearn that problem. They can unlock that problem by psychologically dealing with that problem without medication. A chemical imbalance effects that person. Cause and effect—the chain reaction is endless. You don’t want to be at the level of reaction in art. You want to be in flow, in the moment, in being not in psychology. In the present. Live in the present and whatever happens deal with it. But you have to think beyond what might happen. There has to be acceptance of what is before you deal with what is. You don’t judge it. Whatever it is. You manifest the brush and paint and canvas. Do you have much mental activity going on? There are many me’s, many I’s wanting to do many things, and it’s my job as a human to acknowledge them, to understand who’s doing what.

BS: Total control?

MK: Release of control. Writing is a tool like painting is a tool. There is one big distinction. Language is man-made.

MC: Isn’t painting man-made too? Paint is man-made.

MK: It’s the pigmentary equivalent of light. Something on the wall creates color and that’s a pigment. The ability to combine them and create a mood is a human ability.

BS: Brighter colors create more—

MK: They evoke different things. I have a pile of books on systems of color. Most people paint by systems and they have merits: “I end up with a system and I end up somewhere.” For me it doesn’t work. If I’m doing your portrait we have an objective: “Just make it look like me.” I have an objective and I make a plan.

BS: ESP’s the highest level, right?

MK: You are contrasting knowledge and training with creativity. What counts is the unique life of you. If I am I alive now it should be enough. But it’s very difficult, almost impossible to be that way. You can’t rely on anything external so that person is flawed.

BS: I think I’m alive right now.

MK: We think we need humans so much but we don’t, and we become clingy because we get confirmation. “Honey, you’re feeling sick.” But ultimately that’s not what it’s about. You’re self-sufficient, a reflection of creation. Although life has shown us a million times, but I’m always anxious about what will happen here—even driving up here—to be nervous about it is useless.  It does no good. You have anxiety and problems. My car stars swerving and I go in a ditch. That’s a problem. I don’t know me I don’t know who I truly am.

MC: You need studded tires.

MK: I have those tires. You put your faith in man-made things. All of those are external agents. The ability not to control my fears. Studded tires don’t work on the ice. There are conditions when nothing helps. My trucker friends tell me just to slow down as much as you can.  There is exploration, foolishness, a lack of self-knowledge. In my life I spend so much time learning. The motive behind it was to prove myself. In my thirty years I could have saved ten or fifteen in useless endeavor. You don’t know the higher purpose so you fall in love with a way of painting. It’s ego. You are not intelligent. It gets better and the ego is having fun. The life of you does not need successes because it’s complete unto itself. You are being masked and that is where you are. I started with realism, “I should learn to paint
like the Old Masters”—drawing, perspective, and then I became good and started to cling. Money starts coming and one-man shows.

LZ: You painted famous people, the King of Morocco.

MK: His Majesty the King of Morocco. The question is how are you going to let go when you are worthy of people’s attention and money.

BS: All money does is make your ego grow.

MK: It’s difficult to let go of the pedestal, but I didn’t know. Why would you pay if you haven’t proven yourself? So you drag it for three or four years, eight or ten in all. There’s that nagging voice. Millions of books written about art. I did it in five years. What else is there? What is art about? You lose interest in what you’ve conquered. You look to something else. I came across Impressionism. I had already conquered realism, I’m as good as it gets. Impressionism any body can fall in love with it. Eight years go by, I have made money—the question is why am I doing it? I’m  asleep. I’m at the mercy of my ego. Life kicks you in the butt. I want to know who I am through art. Then art becomes a process of self-knowledge.

BS: Your own style.

MC; You translate into a style. That’s a mistake. Get to know yourself at the level of the mind. These questions are useless and the journey has no destination. You only have this moment and all the rest is speculation. We can take a plunge in that.

BS: Stream of consciousness.

MK: Understanding yourself through your art. There’s got to be a leap. It hangs in your gallery with a price tag on it. There is pragmatism. But there are markets for everything. The Impressionist market is the largest. I can make $20,000 per month. All I have to do is make $5,000 to $6,000 per month to be comfortable. Between the world of manifest and the world of form. The outside world. You can fall asleep to that. We can speculate forever. The truth is in this moment. That’s it. That’s all we have got, really. You say: “How come we’re living in that second.”

BS: Time.

MK: Time is the antithesis of that. I am in no lab outside of this. The knowledge you are talking about is to be learned. I am either present or not present.

BS: What does “now” mean to you?

MK: In practical term, art has given me a glimpses into what it could mean to be present in the enfoldment of that painting. Glimpses into the potential of what I can achieve. It’s the consciousness that nothing happens outside of now, the unique you, what the moment is pregnant with, what needs to manifest through you. It’s potential.

BS: Potential energy.

MK: Nothing ever happens outside this mechanism.

LZ: Majid does action paintings where he paints something right then and the canvas is put up for sale. He will create right there in front of everyone these interpretations. Is that when it’s impossible to find your moment, your now?

MK: It’s the other way around. I do it as an exercise. I’m pushed against the wall. There are different levels of purpose.

LZ: So it can be a creative process.

MK: The more letting go the more creativity is accessible. You let it go through you onto the canvas and that’s it. It’s external to me.

LZ: So you’re not affected by it during the process.

MK: If I am exhausted then I am weak. The inner being is never fixed. The mind is linear and time-bound. The now is not time-bound: you flow with the continuum. It, you, the moment is manifest. All you do is watch what is manifest. I would add inner watching. That’s the sine qua non of this condition. If you’re not paying attention to the canvas, go home. We add another layer of attention. Are you in touch with your inner life through the consciousness? It’s anti-thought. Not thinking here. This is consciousness. Your job as an artist is to be paying attention to the unfolding canvas. Once we’re at home, we add another layer of attention to your inner response. Neither of them are you.

BS: The consciousness of you responding to what’s on the canvas.

MK: Judgments. Observations, assessments. Responses to the canvas. To what is being painted.

BS: To what is good.

MK: If you think that then you have failed completely. You have to be observant. You realize you are judging. It’s a new life, it’s as if you reprogrammed your head. Lisa acting like Mommy. Mommy Lisa.

BS: That’s a very difficult thing to do.

MK: Painting is just a craft we humble ourselves to go back to.

BS: Like skiing

MK: Skiing has some of those elements. It’s three-dimensional.

BS: Aren’t there four dimensions? Space and time are four dimensions.

MK: We could get lost in that. You exist in space and time. I want you to paint on the level of your own consciousness. Really I am an insecure person. My mom used to hang us from a rope for three days. Maybe your Mom was too sweet. My Mom was well-meaning, but she was sick, a sick person.

BS: Did she have money?

MK: My Mom came from wealth.

BS: She probably brought you to where you are today.

MK: You have to use adversity for more consciousness to wake up.

BS: There’s no reason to feel sorry for yourself.

MK: Life is passing you by while you’re being angry and resentful.

BS: Forget about your problems and be in the future.

MC: In the present. Majid is saying be in the present.

MK: All this has not manifested yet in the colorations of your true life. Most art is that which we are not. If art goes to those places, those places are what is. There’s no reality outside of your consciousness.

BS: We can’t comprehend what is going to happen.

MK: We can speculate forever. You are filtered through distortion. You are seeing it.  Everything is subjective. There’s no reality outside of your perception.

MC: Things that are not perceived also happen. “When a tree falls in the forest,” for example.

MK: The consequences are part of the circumstances. When a car hits something a car form has a dented form. My form has hurt your form. That could have an effect on me or no effect on me. Bodies died in Hiroshima. You can only verify through your own form. We know through physics, the experimenter affects the experiment.

MC: Yes, but if there is no one observing the event still happens. We live in a universe, in a galaxy. Sun spots for example. A boulder falling off a planet in a distant universe. That happens even though it is not observed. But let me change the subject and ask you to talk about chess.

MK: Chess takes care of the linear world. What governs it is cause and effect. The duality of materialistic life. There are consequences. You watch them. It’s linear. It teaches you to plan, and see the consequences. Chess is the polarity of the art I like to do. The other art is right-brain-based. Sanity is the balance in the two hemispheres. I don’t want to be in the non-linear world too much,. I’m not forced into the nitty-gritty of life. It’s a dialogue through the medium of chess.

BS: The opponent.

MK: The essences are to be reasonable. You make the best move.

BS: In the moment?

MK: That’s up to you. I use chess to elevate my consciousness. Pure presence, attention. I’m paying full attention to everything. My hand moving to the piece. Little by little it’s elevated in my consciousness. I’m detached from the outcome and the game itself. I’m using the game as a tool to elevate. I’m just using it as an excuse to be fully present.

LZ: Is the ultimate goal to win? That puts a purpose out there.

MK: I ignore that. I try. In general, you sit there and you’re having a dialogue through your opponent in chess. Because you know the logic. The board tells you what’s on his mind. The board tells you.

BS: You don’t know who your opponent is.

MK: You can make lousy moves. You have to be with the board. My opponent does this thing. One guy is rocking like this. And all of this got to me.

BS: He should take a medication.

MK: They
do it because it yields results. He’s not malicious. You don’t care. So basically you pay too much attention to him. Chess is a training ground. It teaches you to focus. There can be no good without attention. Here is how this happens. In that moment you were more yourself and your higher faculties were switched on and your answer came. You are more yourself, but not fully yourself. The mysteries will become clear to you. That is the real you.

MC: It’s like what Jack Palance said in “City Slickers.” “There’s only one thing that matters in life.” But he never explains what the one thing is.

MK: Life is one by saying it’s one thing. It’s no thing which is one thing.  But there can be singularity, integrity, one life within. That is who you are. The other lives are not you. Your mind is but of the form.

MC: So much of what you’re saying is the contrast between objectivity and subjectivity.

MK: Objectivity, subjectivity. The two are one. The ultimate could only be had through true subjectivity. The ultimate in objectivity only exists through the subjectivity.