The Otherness of Caplin Cove

Portrait of Caplin Cove, Nfld, oil on board, 30" x 48", Steven Rhude

                                                               The Otherness of Things

"Reflected on the surface of the pencil is also the inherited and entangled history for his father's care for this important, and perhaps useful object. There is a certain intimacy suggested. He sharpened it by hand, tactfully. The surface suggests he touched it often in his work. The history to their exposure to each other seems clearly visible - they remember each other in their flesh. Indeed, it seems that he felt, in a certain sense, obligated and responsible for it. He did not simply dispose of it when it became to short to be really useful. It is an inexpensive item. He could have easily replaced it with a more useful new one. Instead, he kept it. He tended to it in tenderness it seems. It seems appropriate to suggest that his sense of being affected meant that he felt obligated to let it be even after it seemingly  lost its pure utility value. But this affectedness, this sense of obligation is fragile and precarious. It is small and could have easily been lost in the work place. The concerns of every day life could have overtaken, leaving little or no time to tend to its letting-be. Indeed, its claim is but one of many. There are so many other others. To be sure our exposure to all others is vast, infinite indeed. And all other others also demand our response to their provocations - what Levinias called the the demand of the 'third' for equal justice (Simmons 1999)."

- Lucas D. Entrona, Ethics and Flesh, (Being Touched by the Otherness of Things) - Ruin Memories pg.56

Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS