Fateme Banishoeib

Spoken in English. Their words, as they said them.

You're not generous that the gold is hidden, but he's waiting. And he's waiting. He's never lost. He's there waiting.

And I think this is the role that artists have to make us remember, to make us remember why we are here, to make us remember what our hands are capable of.

And this is what I feel personally responsible for. Not giving people instruction, not telling people what to do or not to do, not saying oh you're right and you're wrong, but reminding myself in the first place and others that there is a golden touch available to all of us.

Which is probably also the reason why I create art. So that what is invisible is visible first to myself and then to whoever decides to see it. That's an offer. That's an invitation that as artists we put out there not knowing if somebody else will make that choice to hear it, sense it, feel it, see it, read it, observe it.

But it's an invitation. That's all it is. It's an invitation. It's a golden spiral inviting us to connect or disconnect. It's an open invitation. It doesn't have a one way street.

The gold is hidden behind the veils of unconsciousness. The gold is waiting, is waiting for your hands to create. Like me, the statue transforming everything in gold, you are now asked to transform yourself into the golden touch of awareness.

There are a few images that are filling the space, filling the silence right now for me.

And they are the paintings of Hilma af Klint, the painter of the invisible, the painter of the unknown.

There is this image of the golden spiral she painted that is I almost see dancing here in front of me, and somehow my body is trying to dance together And I have imagined as if this space and this time is filled by the the the spiral, the spiral of energy, and, how much we can tune into, so that our own spiral, the spiral of who we are, what we feel, what we do, and what we think can get in tune with that, and have an harmonious resonance with the invisible spiral that connects us with everything else, known and unknown.

It feels to me that it is golden, because when it is, seen, then it's a gift, so it's gold.

Or when we decide to see it, it's a gift, so it's gold.

But we don't know that it's gold, and that's the beauty of it. So it's not the obvious, it's not the sensation of gold. That's why it's so precious. It's rare.

It is gold because we have to dig it out from the darkness. We have to dig it out from the unknown. You have to dig it out from the silence. But he's there, and we know that he's there. I think we absolutely know that he's there.

Artist or not artist, doesn't matter. It's just a label. We all know that it's there. At a certain moment in our life, we have sensed the gold, and we might have made a decision, more or less conscious, dig it out or not.

Into the golden touch of awareness.

Isn't what an artist is? The golden touch of awareness. Of awareness of what we feel, of what we sense, what has not emerged yet, what others can't put images into, or words into.

Isn't an artist the golden touch of a new world, wanting to emerge? Not here yet. Unknown.

Amorphous, with no forms, no colors, no shape.

And that golden touch is within each and every one of us. There is an artist in each and every one of us waving their form. Your hands to create.

Asking to transform yourself into the golden touch of awareness.

And if we have the capacity of golden touch, and we start learning that we have it, and that it is in our capacity, it is within us, Can we trust that that same golden touch is in someone else's touch?

Can we trust it, value it, respect it, and cherish it as our own touch?

With no comparison, but with absolute belief that that touch is a golden touch.

And if we do, how that changes the relationship we have with others.