Judith Trepp and the Power of Two

The ideal of the mystic is the transcendence of dualism into the supreme unity that is the true nature of being in general. This is all well and good, but as long as we are doing this thing called human life, we of necessity dwell in duality, and just get glimpses of that other, ultimate truth. Who would deny that the core principles of life are dual: night/day, male/female, positive/negative, and so on. Sure, we acknowledge today, for example, people who are non-binary, but with all due respect, it's the exception that proves the rule. Which is not to denigrate it or say it's not real. But living outside duality is a bitch. Steve Earle wrote a song about it called "Transcendental Blues." Many pitfalls lie on the path beyond the grid. However, it must also be admitted that living within duality is also a bitch. Truly. Ain't no literature or art without it. No religion. No life without it. No marriage, even when it's same sex. The key is to figure out how to live in duality with grace, which might be called the "mission statement" for human incarnation. Part of that is awareness that the "opposing" poles share the same nature, are different expressions of the same life force. Caution and fear are of the same stuff. Bravery and foolhardiness. Freedom and violation. Kindness and blindness. The key is to avoid categorical value judgment. I used to think the Japanese injunction to see no evil or hear no evil was ignorant, but then I realized there was something to it. But this isn't the place to get into that. So anyway, we nurture proper awareness, and this then opens us to the primary practice of dealing creatively with polarity and difference, which is dialogue, and I don't just mean as a mode of talking. This places us into generative relationship with the other, and helps us escape from the most destructive framing of duality, which is us-versus-them. Together, these imperatives of awareness and dialogue reveal that, as the yin-yang symbol shows, we are in the other even as we are separate, and since we are indeed apart, the beautiful, most magnificent calling is to explore and celebrate both our sameness and difference. My friend Judith Trepp has been working in her painting and drawings with duality for quite a while now, maybe forever. While the dual or the pair is a tradition in art, the diptych as it is called, it isn't really the go-to mode for most artists, since there is a certain lack of dynamism. I was always taught that aesthetic groupings are best with odd numbers, or maybe I wasn't taught that they are best, but codified it in my mind that way. Nevertheless, there is less implied movement in even as opposed to odd numbers. Thus, what the diptych provides us with is an in-built tension: Damn. There's only the two of us here. And I'm not sure we even like each other! Now what are we going to do? Judith's works provide us with many cool answers to that question.