Sabina

“indigo blue was called “the devil’s dye.” And before blue became a “holy” color—which had to do with the advent of ultramarine in the twelfth century, and its subsequent use in stained glass and religious paintings—it often symbolized the Antichrist”
― Maggie Nelson

“I just don’t feel like you’re trying hard enough,” one friend says to me. How can I tell her that not trying has become the whole point, the whole plan?”
― Maggie Nelson, Bluets

“78. Once I traveled to the Tate in London to see the blue paintings of Yves Klein, who invented and patented his own shade of ultramarine, International Klein Blue (IKB), then painted canvases and objects with it throughout a period of his life he dubbed “l’epoque bleue.” Standing in front of these blue paintings, or propositions, at the Tate, feeling their blue radiate out so hotly that it seemed to be touching, perhaps even hurting, my eyeballs, I wrote but one phrase in my notebook: too much. I had come all this way, and I could barely look. Perhaps I had inadvertently brushed up against the Buddhist axiom, that enlightenment is the ultimate disappointment. “From the mountain you see the mountain,”wrote Emerson.”
― Maggie Nelson, Bluets

“I don’t go to the movies anymore. Please don’t try to convince me. When something ceases to bring you pleasure, you cannot talk the pleasure back into it. “My removal arose not out of a conscious decision, but was simply a natural fading away from film,” writes artist Mike Kelley. “We have become filmic language, and when we look at the screen all we see is ourselves. So what is there to fall into or be consumed by? When looking at something that purports to be you, all you can do is comment on whether you feel it is a good resemblance or not. Is it a flattering portrait? This is a conscious, clearly ego-directed, activity.”
― Maggie Nelson, Bluets