I've Been Framed

June 24, 2025

Behind a simple act there lies a wealth of possibilities. Let’s take handshakes as an example. You have shaken a thousand hands, ten thousand times. It’s a “nothing” gesture. And yet, it symbolizes connection, acknowledgement, status negotiations, agreements and compromises, thoughts and emotions. The list could go on. Yes, the list is going to go on! Palm to palm and skin to skin, physical contact, the exchange of biological and psychic energies. Shake hands with a stranger, and you’ll immediately gather a lot of information about the stranger. The information might be misleading, and you might misinterpret it, but the information is right there, under your fingertips.

There’s the handshake, and there’s the symbolic power of the handshake. One seems banal, the other is tremendously powerful. The principle of symbolic power is ever-present in our lives. As the dogmatic types among us like saying, THE PRINCIPLE APPLIES TO EVERYTHING. Every little thing has its connections to a symbolic dimension; every little thing is a big deal waiting to come out of its cocoon.

Recently I engaged in a seemingly banal activity: buying frames for some of my drawings and putting the framed drawings up on a wall. Sure, sure, a frame; Pedro, a million people buy frames every day and put a framed photo of some kid up somewhere. Mantelpiece, kitchen counter, whatever, Pedro.

The word “frame” means a lot of different things: a picture frame, a frame of mind, an innocent person framed for a crime. A frame encloses an object, a person, an idea; that is, it closes it off from its surrounding environment and lends it an external structure, which somehow contains and constrains it. A frame separates and emphasizes something. Imagine nine drawings scotch-taped to a wall, and one framed drawing added to the group. The frame says, “I’m holding this; look at this; this one here is distinctive, it’s not like all the others.” You might frame a diploma and hang it somewhere; then the frame signals an honor or a distinction that makes you different from other people who don’t have the diploma or the training and expertise that culminate in the diploma.

Suppose that you’ve made five hundred drawings, all of them currently inside a box inside a closet, invisible to the world. Suppose that, from the five hundred, you choose one drawing to come out of the box and to become visible to the world. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the one in a hundred, the one in five hundred?

To draw is to respond to a lively creative impulse that entails movement, trial and error, transformation: the impulse becomes gesture, and the gesture becomes a sketch or image. “To draw” is an action, a verb, a process; “a drawing” is a noun, a thing, a result. Framing the object furthers objectifies what used to be a lively movement. Hey, let’s let the dogmatic artist shout his emotion: “TO FRAME A DRAWING IS TO KILL A CREATIVE IMPULSE.” Sure, sure, Pedro, you’re a murderer. We’ll visit you in jail, maybe.

My wife Alexis is a devoted builder. If we buy something from Ikea, Alexis will put it up for us while I kill some eggs in the kitchen and frame them in an omelet. Division of labor, you know? Recently I traveled to the US for two weeks, and during my absence Alexis repainted our living room with care and skill. Among other things, she painted one of our walls a color that some people would call maroon, others burgundy or garnet. We had chosen the color together; together we then chose which drawings of mine we’d put up, and in what arrangement. Together we made decisions and indecisions. (Yes, you can make indecisions, particularly when you’re framing sweet drawings for crimes they didn’t commit.) How long did it take for those drawings to go up? The procedure required an unbroken sequence of events starting with the Big Bang fourteen billion years ago. I used to be an amoeba. Growing up was rather time-consuming.

Three years ago, I started exploring brush-and-ink drawings. Some of you are familiar with the story, so I won’t tell it again. Instead, I’ll say this: the word “amoeba” comes from a very ancient root meaning “to change, to go, to move.” (Slowly.)

Wait, don’t buzz off! I want to whisper four practical takeaways into your right brain.

Many things in life are both action-and-object, verb-and-noun.
Be attentive to the inescapable symbolic dimension. It’s a big deal.
Time is bizarre. Seconds can be long, and centuries can be short.
Two amoebas met in a bar. They’re still there. If you order a beer on tap, ask the bartender to wash the glass carefully.

The Twelve

May 25, 2025

Count out loud from one to twelve. It’s a nothing exercise, right?

One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve.

You’re about to find out that it’s an everything exercise: a portal from dismissal to embrace, from hurry to timelessness, from the profane to the sacred.

Consider the number 12 and how present it is in your life: the twelve months, the twelve signs of the zodiac; the twelve hours, and the other twelve hours, making up a full day; the twelve apostles, the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve Olympian gods of the Parthenon; the twelve members of the jury, which famously became Twelve Angry Men, the fabulous film directed by a young Sydney Lumet. And let’s not forget the dozen eggs.

(And the twelve tones of the chromatic scale, and the twelve fundamentals of the circle of fifths.)

We won’t elaborate the point any further, but we’ll agree (won’t we!) that the number 12 is incredibly powerful from a symbolic and metaphysical point of view. It’s central to our existence.

Let’s spend a little time with mathematics. We can divide 12 by 12, 6, 4, 3, 2, or 1, giving us a wide variety of symmetrical subdivided combinations. The number 10, in comparison, can only be divided by 10, 5, 2, or 1. It’s less flexible, so to speak. Here's an illustration of how twelve can be four times three or three times four.

The rhythms of a language contribute to its prosody. The prosody of English, for instance, is very different from the prosody of Hungarian: stresses, inflections, and groupings of syllables and words make it possible for us to tell, immediately, if someone is speaking English or Hungarian. Here’s a very short poem spicing up the prosody of your counting.

ONE | two | three.

One | TWO | three.

One | two | THREE.

Numbers have names. The number 3, for instance, is called “three.” Counting is a version of naming. Names come with stories and histories. Think of a few everyday names, like Sarah, Pedro, Miguel, and Elizabeth. Look them up on the Internet, and you’ll see that these names have existed for thousands of years and have passed through the Bible, through royal lineages, through wonders and miracles, through joys and terrors. The names of the numbers also come with incredible stories and histories. More than six thousand years ago, a language was spoken in the region that today we call Ukraine. The people who spoke that language traveled widely and disseminated their culture. And you know what happened? Their language had babies. Greek, French, Farsi, Sanskrit, and dozens of other languages are wonderfully complex derivations of a single language, which linguists call Proto-Indo-European.

Whenever you say the name of a number out loud—“three,” “seven,” “one hundred and forty-four”—you’re manifesting a millenary linguistic tradition that binds together many cultures and many people. To count is to be part of something unimaginably gigantic, timeless and ever-present.

Counting requires vowels, diphthongs, and consonants, a wealth of sounds in marvelous combinations. Some of the richness might escape your attention at first. For instance, “one” stars with an unwritten consonant sound, kind of like this: “wone.” Did you know—did you know!—that you’re forever pronouncing unwritten consonant sounds?

Count out loud super-slowly, lengthening every lengthenable sound and enjoying every microsecond of your over-commitment.

Wwwwooooonnnnnne, twoooooooooo, thhhhhhrrrrreeeee . . . .

To count out loud is to engage the lips, tongue, jaw, pharynx, larynx, glottis, lungs, diaphragm, and 144 other body parts. Counting is physical, like dancing and martial arts.

Muscles, nerves, tendons, joints;

movement, energy, flow, effort;

poise, pleasure, sound, silence.

To count is to breathe. It’s such a big subject that I’ll limit myself to a possibly helpful simplification: baby (perfect natural unconscious reflex), adult (awkward gasping asthmatic hyperventilation), master (perfect natural conscious reflex).

One, two, three . . . and I breathe, like a baby or like a master.
Four, five, six . . . and my ribs and lungs move of their own accord.
Seven, eight, nine . . . and I receive air, oxygen, prāna, and love.
Ten, eleven, twelve . . . and I’m ready to cry with happiness.

Chant your numbers calmly, at a very moderate pace, on a pitch that doesn’t change, taking sweet loving prosodic breaths after two, three, or four numbers. You have become a chanter in a sacred setting, regardless of who you are and where you are.

This exercise is part of “The 5-Minute Voice,” my series of clips for all comers addressing vocal creative health. Would you like to know more about it? Click here.

Elopement

April 24, 2025

I got rejected, and I got accepted. It’s only a detail in my story!

From first intuition to ultimate crystallization, the creative process mirrors the larger processes of life itself. I think it’s useful to ponder their parallels, because it makes it easier to navigate their respective processes (with their inevitable bouts of rejection and acceptance, among many other joys and sorrows)!

I recently finished writing a new book: sixty thousand words, two hundred photos, 36 video clips; anecdotes, concepts, exercises. Hands, Wrists, Fingers: Creative Health for Musicians will be published by Anthem Press in a few months. This is acceptance, made visible and tangible!

Rejection came earlier, from another publisher who had doubts about the validity of the book and the philosophy it represented. Whaaaaaat, don’t you love me???

I’m teasing myself about being rejected, or about my feelings regarding rejection: it was the book proposal that got rejected, not my person. If you don’t put your neck out, the Big Taylor in the Sky won’t be able to Measure your Neck and Decide What Fits You Best. Old publisher, no fit; new publisher, yes fit! Thank you, Anthem Press! Thank you, Big Taylor in the Sky!

Rejection and acceptance don’t determine the primary direction of your projects (or your life). The projects want to go somewhere, and they take you there; life wants to go somewhere, and you follow the lead without paying too much attention to the hundred no’s and the hundred yeses. Listen to Life, not to the threshold guardians or the threshold pompom girls!

Early steps: you don’t know what you’re doing or why, and you really don’t know where you’ll end. Unsteady baby learning to walk: do you think she knows already what she’ll be doing in five days, five months, five years, or five decades? She doesn’t know, but she’ll find out. As Aristotle famously didn’t say, “Knowledge Prevents Exploration.” My book learned to crawl, then to toddle. Soon my book will learn to Dance the Liminal Tango with the Potential Reader (You)!

Investigation, discovery, joy, disappointment, recovery, acceptance, celebration. Then it starts again: investigation, discovery . . . I had an incredibly good time working on this project, but I’ve had to revise, change, revisit, delete, chuck, chuck, and chuck a lot of materials. And chucking didn’t always feel good. So with life! Oh, how hard it is to let go! Oh, how hard it is to embrace! Oh, how hard it is to choose what to embrace and what to let go! Have you already claimed your free membership in the Club for People who Find it Hard to Embrace and to Let Go? It’s free, I’m telling you! And it has many benefits!

Rhythm, pacing, timing. These concepts are related, maybe synonymous, maybe not. As regards a project, do you count the amount of time that you “think about it” or only the time that you “work on it”? The actual writing of my book took something like seven months. The thinking-about-it has taken decades; perhaps it had no beginning and will have no end. Like life, creative projects resist the boundaries of chronology. I recommend a playful embrace of the notion of rebirth. An hour, sixty minutes: that’s sixty rebirths. Life is Renewal, happening quick and slow at the same time; life is eternal rebirth. If you’re not reborn in the next 59 seconds, you need to see a doctor immediately!

Hey, have you noticed it? Every paragraph in this blog post ends with an exclamation mark! Including this one here!

To publish means “to make it public.” If you reveal the name of your neighbor’s cousin’s married lover, you’re publishing it. We’re all informal publishers, sharing insights, questions, and confidences. My wife has known me for thirty years, and I often tell her little things that she’s never suspected about me; to her I “publish” my tics, my frustrations, my regrets, my bad jokes, plus some strange hankerings and goals. My wife is my “public.” Once you realize that life is made of “publications,” then you can cope with a project coming to fruition and escaping your control, just like a bad joke escaping your mouth. Hands, Wrists, Fingers and I are eloping in August or September. It’s a secret! Please don’t publish it!

Separation Anxiety

March 25, 2025

I recently parted with six of my drawings. In itself, this is a banal event of no consequence. And, in itself, this is a big deal, an exceptional and consequential event.

The drawings became the property of a marvelous musician whom I’ve known for fifteen or eighteen years and who’s been supporting me generously in my Patreon initiative. Technically, he bought the drawings. But, you know, artistic exchanges between sensitive creative souls who’ve known each other for a couple of decades don’t look and feel like commercial events.

All right, Pedro, someone bought six drawings of yours. And?

One of my grown-up nephews lives in LA and has a fine career as a studio musician and university teacher. When he was little—maybe five years old or so—he asked his mother (my sister) about what happened when someone died. His mother, hoping to reassure the child, said that the person in question would go to heaven. My nephew freaked out, and he cried unconsolably for the longest time. “I don’t want to go to heaven when I die,” he said again and again.

What I mean is that every human being has metaphysical inclinations—the desire to ask urgent questions for which there are no clear answers, questions about the meaning of life, about right and wrong, about beauty and truth, about space and time, about connection and separation. Like, dying is a sort of separation, isn’t it? But going to heaven is a sort of connection, isn’t it? “NOOOOOO!”

I think that the metaphysical dimension, or the meaning-of-life dimension, or the separation-and-connection dimension, always lurks behind our daily existence, our banal interactions, our hello-how-are-you, our another-coffee,-please.

My interest in art first arose in my bosom (men have bosoms????) when I was about 10 years old. In my hometown of São Paulo, a new museum went up: a beautiful building in a beautiful block in a beautiful avenue, right across from a small city park that holds remnants of the rain forest that ancestrally dominated the landscape of São Paulo. MASP (the Museu de Arte de São Paulo) was inaugurated in 1968, and you know what? The Queen herself came over to unveil the plaque that announced, “Here today a boy will start exploring his love of art, and let’s wish him luck!”

By the way, I’m not a monarchist; on the contrary. I’m not saying that Queen Elizabeth godmothered my art. She’s a mental trinket, I guess. An ornament in my story. May she rest in peace.

At MASP I took a course on the history of music. In the packed auditorium, a professor (the very charming and knowledgeable Walter Lourenção) told us interesting and meaningful things. I was maybe 15 years old, squiggly and zitty, the stereotypical disembodied loner. The professor played a recording of Renaissance music and asked the audience to name the instruments being used. Participants offered absurd impossibilities, the gamba, the harpsichord, the kazoo, what’s wrong with people! I raised my hand. “A sackbut, a regal, and a krummhorn,” I said. “That’s absolutely right,” the professor said. Six hundred ears and six hundred eyes turned toward me; a murmur arose. I’m probably making up a few of the details, but those three instruments (the regal butt and the crummy horn) are totally and truthfully true.

There was a film series; I discovered Buster Keaton. Concerts by first-class artists from all over the world, the tickets heavily subsidized. I heard Leonard Rose, I heard János Starker, I heard I Musici, I heard Ruggiero Ricci. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t familiar with them. The main thing is that I was entwining myself with art, music, film, architecture, urban design, and a thousand other monsters, deities, and trinkets, may she rest in peace.

I took part in a few concerts myself, playing in youth chamber orchestras. One day when I was semi-grown up and studying music in the US I played a cello-and-piano recital there. Oh glory! I didn’t play very well, but that’s only a detail. I was playing the same recital hall as Leonard Rose and János Starker.

MASP was a long digression in what I’m trying to tell you, which we could call “the metaphysics of the moment,” for instance the moment when you sell six drawings to a friend and supporter. The moment exists in a context or totality full of existential dimensions, in which time, destiny, choice, connection, and separation are always cooking in low heat and sometimes coming to a boil. The moment is banal (low heat); the moment isn’t banal (boiling hot).

Less than three years ago I got more seriously involved in making art, as you probably know from my blog posts. The involvement (which was born at MASP almost 60 years ago) has taken me places; not geographically, but artistically and metaphysically. I’ve explored techniques, styles, materials, themes; I’ve made a series of drawings inspired by the invention of writing, another series inspired by abstract cartographies, another series hinting at cosmographies.

Yep, it all sounds very pretentious, all regal butts and horns, all downright krummy!

The paradox is that I don’t take my person too seriously, and yet my artwork, though borne of playful exploration, is in fact rather substantial. It “exists,” by which I mean it has value, coherence, power, and beauty; it’s individually mine, and yet it flows from some source which is by no means mine. Me, not me; me, not me: paradox, may she rest in peace.

I’ve made many hundreds of drawings on different types and sizes of paper, using ink, gouache, charcoal sticks, Bic pens, markers, pencils, pastels, Crayola: the usual materials that millions of other people have used over the eons. In themselves my materials aren’t original.

I’ll use an approximative, symbolic number and say that I’ve made a thousand drawings in two and a half years. I have boxes and boxes of drawings. The size of regular office paper is called A4. The equivalent of two sheets of office paper is A3; four sheets, A2; eight sheets, A1. I have drawings in all these sizes.

My friend and supporter is getting six A3 drawings. Six; if I have a stock of a thousand, this is 0.6% of my output.

But looking through my collection and choosing these six drawings, I had a big bout of separation anxiety. I didn’t want to part with them. Or, as my nephew famously said, “NOOOOOOO!” My drawings were dying and going to heaven, and I wasn’t happy. (Exaggerations and distortions are part of the story, of course. Metaphysics isn’t fact-oriented.)

I have tools to deal with separation anxiety. I go “professional,” as it were; I go “adult,” so to speak; I “evacuate my feelings,” after a fashion. I employ procedures. I bring some of my boxes out from their storage; I go through the contents of each box quickly and make snap judgments: not this one, not this one, no, no, maybe this one. Six boxes of A3 drawings, each box informally gathering a theme or a material (gouache or ink, white paper or black paper, calligraphy or cartography). From each box I make a preselection of two, three, four, or more drawings. Then I start mixing and matching: this drawing from this pile, this other drawing from this other pile.

My wife Alexis (an artist herself) lends me her eye and her heart. And with her help I choose six drawings. Once the choice is made, I put them aside in a folder, and I restore all the boxes to in their safe hiding place; I do it quickly, “professionally, adult-ly,” because if I start thinking the separation anxiety will reassert itself and I’ll bawl like a five-year-old discovering the facts of life.

Immediately after choosing the six drawings and putting them aside, I decided to make some more art. It’s quite logical! You’re letting six orphans out of your orphanage, so you must, you must, you must generate six new orphans, because you don’t want the other 994 orphans to feel lonely, do you!

Although metaphysics isn’t fact-oriented, the fact is that creativity is infinite. The not-me source that granted me a thousand drawings is permanently ready to grant me as many drawings as I want, six or six hundred or six thousand. I don’t mean that I’m infinitely creative; I mean that the Creative Source is infinite, and as long as I’m available to its flow I’ll keep drawing and drawing and drawing.

And every time I’ll part with any one of my drawings, I’ll feel separation anxiety, a little or a lot. This, too, is a fact, perfectly banal and perfectly NOOOOOOOO!

Good Luck!

February 21, 2025

Self, other, task, materials, processes. Good luck!

Did you know that Taylor Swift wrote a song about me? It goes like this: “The explainers gonna explain, explain, explain, explain, explain.” Good luck!

The self is you: your person, your indivisible body and mind and soul, your thoughts and feelings (and you might not be fully aware of all your thoughts and all your feelings), your history and your stories. If you and I sit across each other at the café, chatting and sharing a chocolate mousse, we’ll be “sitting across each other’s stories.” Good luck!

The other is anything that isn’t that self of yours. It can be another person, it can be an animal, it can be an entity that resides outside yourself although, technically speaking, your imagination and your heart might have a relationship with the entity or person or cat, and then the “other” kind of resides “in the self.” Good luck!

In other words, the separation between yourself and the rest of the universe is relative. According to some philosophers and mystics, also some quantum physicists and some poets, also some sources that wish to remain anonymous (including Alfred N. Whitehead, not to be confused with Alfred E. Newman), the universe is defined by the relationships that exist between yourself and the places, events, ideas, objects, and people with whom you interact—that is, the universe is a set of relationships. Good luck!

Should I carry on with my explanation? Yes, thank you. The task can be minuscule (wash a lettuce leaf) or enormous (write a book), but the main thing is that your life is made of a series of never-ending tasks—all day long, day after day. When you’re sitting across from me sharing a chocolate mousse, “your bundle of tasks” is sitting across “my bundle of tasks.” Good luck!

Every task comes with its materials, both physical and psychic. If my task is to learn a new piece at the piano, there’ll be the piano itself (which is “pregnant with my stories”), the score (also “pregnant”), the physical setting of my home or the rental studio where I’m “making myself pregnant with the piano and the score.” It takes two to tango and three to get pregnant. If my task is to help a student understand time signatures, syncopations, offbeats, and hemiolas (good luck!), the materials include a printed method, the entire edifice of the musical language, traditions and conventions, mathematics, prosody, infographics, and contraception. Good luck!

You want to achieve the task, to fulfill it, to accomplish it: to learn the new piano piece, for instance, or to make the salad. Then you’ll have no choice but to engage in multiple processes, including slicing a lemon but not slicing your fingers. You and I, chocolate mousse: it’s “your bundle of processes” sitting across “my bundle of processes.” Good luck!

Self, other, task, materials, processes. To accomplish a task is to work on yourself, to work on your relationship with the other, to handle the materials and processes demanded by the task. One Alfred said that that everything exists “in relation,” and nothing exists “in isolation.” Another Alfred said, “What, me worry?” Good luck!

Hallelujah!

January 25, 2025

The other day I got thinking about the word “will.” I don’t mean the document determining who gets the manor house and who gets the cat after you die. I mean the determination to do something, the commitment and desire: “I have the will (to get out of bed),” as in the famous song. Its full title is “I have the will (to get out of bed) (but not yet, Lord) (it’s cozy under the blankets) (and I didn’t do the dishes last night) (or the night before) (so spare me Lord) (and I promise I’ll get out of bed) (before sunset) (unless, you know, I don’t) (Hallelujah)”.

How do you say “information in the form of a joke” in German? That is a joke in itself, but I digress. I meant to say that thinking about “will” is useful and urgent, because your relationship with determination, commitment, and desire affects many things in your life. You “decide you’re going to be a musician when you grow up,” for instance. This seems like an expression of your will: a conscious decision; a plan; an objective. You commit to lessons and workshops, you study, you go to rehearsals, you practice, learn, and perform; all of this flows from your will.

Your career, then, arises from the pondered choices that you make over the years and decades, sometimes starting quite early on in your life.

Unless, of course, things don’t work that way. Maybe you don’t “will” but “you’re willed.” Mysterious and unnamable forces outside your control and outside your intellectual awareness engineer strange situations, compelling encounters, fortuitous events. You find yourself vaguely exploring something without knowing why, and without having decided to explore it. You don’t understand what you’re doing, and you can’t quite explain it to your friends and family. Or your explanations don’t reflect the actuality of what you’re doing. Because you don’t know exactly what you’re doing.

And if you’re available to the mystery, open to the difficult-to-justify exploration, “willing not to will,” your life and your career take unexpected turns, seemingly illogical from a professional, financial, or familial point of view, and yet organic to your deeper self, of which you may or may not have a clear grasp.

There’s a stereotypical Hollywood mantra or exhortation, dispensed by parents toward their children in films and TV shows: “You can do anything you want! You can become anybody you want!” It’s a celebration of pragmatic, extraverted will and self-determination. “You can get out of bed! And you will! Because you want to conquer the world and become the best neurosurgeon in the history of humanity!”

Let’s sing another song. “Lord, I’m not sure I want to become (the best neurosurgeon in the history of humanity) (and I didn’t do the dishes last night) (but I had a weird dream) (and the arts supply store was offering discounts) (and I meant to buy a couple of pencils only) (but somehow I ended up buying a ton of gouache) (I have no idea what to do with the gouache) (Lord, you bought gouache on my behalf, didn’t you?) (and now you, Lord, you’re splattering gouache over this beautiful A3-sized paper with a grainy surface) (and I’m standing here, squeezing the tube of gouache) (sorry, Lord, I meant to say that you’re squeezing the tube on my behalf) (and, oh my Lord, look at these splodgy blobs in orange, black, yellow, and violet) (they’re gorgeous) (I need some chocolate) (Lord, there’s no chocolate left in the house) (why oh why) (the supermarket is a block away, Pedro) (but, Lord—) (Shut up, Pedro, or I’ll make you squeeze some more gouache on some more A3-sized paper with a grainy surface) (yay Lord) (Hallelujah!)”.

Leonard Cohen was onto something. I love his song “Stock up (on 70% dark chocolate) (just in case).”