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走 近 不 惑
自 序
李绍周
三十八年前，冥冥之中我糊里糊涂地投胎于客居在河西走廊的一户普通工人家。六岁时举家返回故乡洛阳，小学没读完即懵懵懂懂地投入了文化大革命的洪流，高中一毕业就满怀豪情地下乡当了农民。在该长庄稼的季节里，大地上长满了茂盛的荒草。
少年初涉丹青，一无家传，二无师承，信手涂鸦，自觉惬意。从军西北不久，时代潮流大变，我们被毫不留情地抛上浅滩。蓦然回首，二十春已虚度矣！扪心自问，所学知识除汉字尚能识用外，其余均顺水漂失了。身无长技，如何独立于世？惆怅万分，于是立志学画。与许多朋友们一样，数年寒窗苦读，几载艰辛坎坷，既要忍受寂寞，又要漠视嘲讽，更要经常与自己的怯懦和浮躁搏斗。小胜则不骄，跬步而行，孜孜以求。大败亦不馁，吮血自慰，苦苦经营。靠冥顽不化的固执和对艺术九死不悔的痴情，我走到了现在。
我的画，是我在自己选择的人生之路上艰难跋涉的一行蹒跚足迹；是我投生三十八年来对这世界体察和理解的一页心得；是我心田流淌出的一支无名小曲；是我脑际常常翱翔着的一只美丽灵鸟；是我青春之树上悄然飘落的片片枯叶；是我送给炎热尘世的一缕清风。
我十分渴望我的作品能为人们所接受和喜爱，但如果它们最终只能成为居家客厅里的装饰品，那我会深感悲哀。
孔子曰：“三十而立，四十而不惑”，如今，三十八年已过去，我正走近生命的不惑之界。然而，站在二十一世纪的门槛前，我心中既感充实又怀困惑。也许人类就是这样，穿过旧的困惑又走入新的困惑，在困惑中自发自醒，在困惑中自强自立。我想，只要我们执一念而不改，秉一烛而不弃，在迷离而漫长的旅途上，终会进入理想境界的。
1994.8.5于北京清河
NEARING THE AGE OF FORTY
Thirty-eight years ago, I was born in an
ordinary worker's family living in a strange place along Hexi Corridor,
Northwest of China. When I was six, the whole family returned to Luoyang
city, the hometown of ours, where I threw myself ignorantly into the
torrent of the cultural revolution before I could finish my primary
school study, and where I went to the countryside with full confidence
working as a peasant upon graduation from high school. In right seasons
for crops to grow, the farmland turned out to be covered with overgrown
weed.
I touched painting for the first time as a
teenager. Since the family had nothing which I could benefit from
for painting and I could not find any artist to follow, I could only
scrawl at my fingertips, enjoying myself. Shortly after I joined the
PLA in the northwest of China, an enormous change of trends of the
times took place, pushing us onto the shallows mercifully. Suddenly
recalling the past, I realized that two decades had been wasted all.
Examining my conscience, I knew most of what I once learned at schools
had already floated away except that I was still able to be familiar
with using no more than Chinese characters. How could I live on my
own in this world since I had no talent which I would depend upon
till then? Feeling so disconsolate, I was determined to learn painting.
Like many of my friends, I experienced painstaking
study as well as a hard life being full of frustrations for years.
Besides bearing loneliness and ignoring taunts that emerged around,
much more I did was to struggle with myself whenever I was in a timid
or impetuous mood. Never did I feel arrogant upon little successes
I achieved, but strove diligently for greater progress; never did
I lose heart when encountering great failure, but calmed down myself
and went on working even harder. Just by the nature of being stubborn
and with the constant passion for art, I made my own way to the present.
My paintings are a line of footsteps I left
behind when taking the difficult journey of life selected myself;
they are part of what I have learned and understood in observing the
world for the past thirty-years; they are a nameless melody I would
always sing when feeling pleased; they are an idea existing in my
mind all the time; they are the dead leaves falling from the youth
tree of mine; they are a cool breeze I blow to this hot world.
It is my great hope that my works are accepted
and loved by people. It would make me feel deeply grieved if my works
finally become the mere ornaments in the lobbies of residential houses.
Confucius said:"You live on your own
at thirty and you should not be misled at forty". Thirty-eight
years having already passed, I am rightly nearing at extent of forty.
Standing in front of the threshold of the 21st century, however, I
feel both full and puzzled in my mind. Perhaps human beings live just
in such a way in which they face new puzzlements after overcoming
old ones, and they both waken themselves and support themselves when
being puzzled.
I think that if we stick to some idea, but
not shake it, and hold the lantern, but not abandon it, we will ultimately
enter the ideal field in the long course of a misting journey.
Li Shaozhou
Qinghe, Beijing
5 August, 1994
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