Unclear Catalogs of None of the Known Propterties of Things

I'm in this sweet spot of making things.

One, I trust myself enough to be able to make a good portrait. Two, I trust myself enough not to rely on a good portrait. Three, I distrust myself enough that, through a series of practiced and accidental mistakes, I can make a portrait that isn't in a relationship to what is definably good.

Of course, I only vaguely know what I'm attempting to talk about.

It's not as if I no longer value personality or the energy of the subject (including when the subject is me), it's just that I don't think it can be represented by a straight-forward portrait any more. There's too much static. It's like trying to shoot a photo of the entire carousel while riding on it.

And although this is in reference to writing, I cannot help but apply it -- and agree with it -- for art-making as well:

It's a kind of lazy approach to intellectualism when you think 'The important thing is to be clear.'

Clarity does not get us truth; clarity gets us a kind of superficial crust that looks like a truth. 

Because reality itself is not an explicit proposition. Reality itself is something deeper than what we say about it. Therefore the only way to get at reality is to be able to elude, to hint, to suggest...

We're not trying to make clear catalogs of all the known properties of things [...] 

You love wisdom; you don't have it. You're trying to get at what's hiding beneath opinion, what's hiding beneath appearance. And the only way to do that is by approaching it obliquely...

- Graham Harman on, well, everything fantastic in this world. But, oh yeah, on clarity too, here.