A compilation of 4 essays that fluidly circulate to connect the various inquiries, influences, and aspects of my work. I created an elaborately folded envelope to present the essays in random order. Where to begin and how to proceed became a choice for the reader.
Imagine extraterrestrials on a distant planet some 40,000 years from now listening to the strains of Johnny B. Goode “…go, go Johnny go, go, go, I say go…” Any alien worth meeting, I’m sure, would surely get down on that guitar riff.
NASA sent that Chuck Berry song into space aboard Voyager 1 and 2 in 1977 along with115 visual images, a variety of sounds including eighty-seven and a half minutes of music, and greetings in 55 languages in an attempt to capture and communicate the essence of life on earth. Should it find its way into the hands (hands?) of curious extraterrestrials, this Voyager Interstellar Record comes with a cartridge and phonograph needle as well as visual instruction in a symbolic language on how to play it. The Golden Record, as it is called, was compiled by a team of scientists, artists, and writers under the direction of Dr. Carl Sagan in a very brief period of time. The result was carefully considered even in its haste, an ambitious and sweetly idealistic attempt to preserve and proclaim our civilization.
A different civilization spinning around a different star—one of some 250 billion stars that make up the Milky Way, which is one of perhaps hundreds of billions of other galaxies—will, most assuredly, not speak one of the known 5,000-6,000 earthly languages. So unique to a particular time and place is language that, according to Darwin, “like a species, once extinct, never…reappears”.1 Most likely they will not read a picture as we do either so Jon Lomberg, an artist charged with image selection for the VIR, found himself “increasingly playing the role of extraterrestrial...I would look at pictures and try to imagine that I’d never seen the subject before. How could the photograph be misinterpreted? What was ambiguous? How could scale be deduced? That bird in the distance flying past the man, a wingtip partly obscured by the man’s out flung arm—I knew that the bird was a second creature in the distance, but if I didn’t, couldn’t it be a growth on the man’s arm?”2 Jump right into his game. Considered according to the rigors of Lomberg’s role-playing, images we regularly view bespeak and enforce our culture in ways that go shockingly unnoticed. The potential for updated enlightenment is staggering.
Ultimately, the pictorial contents of the VIR encompassed symbolic scientific notation, our solar system, human anatomy, families, geographic earth structures, vegetation, animals, man-made structures, cultural activities and artifacts. Telling, though, is not what was selected for inclusion on the Golden Record, but what was omitted:
“There were a few topics that we intentionally avoided. We reached a consensus that we shouldn’t present war, disease, crime, and poverty. It would be naïve to deny the importance of these phenomena in human culture and history—after all, more human beings have killed one another or starved to death than have written string quartets. Yet we felt that we were making something that would survive us and our time—something that might be the only token of Earth the universe would have. We decided that the worst in us needn’t be sent across the galaxy. Also, we wanted to avoid any sort of political statement in this message, and a picture of Hiroshima or My Lai—or of a noble and heroic warrior, for that matter—seemed more an ideological statement than an integral part of an image of Earth. Nor did we want any part of the message to seem threatening or hostile to recipients (“Look how tough we are”), which is why we didn’t send a picture of a nuclear explosion.”3
With a hint of a ‘what-would-the-cosmic-neighbors-think’ style of reasoning, a logical, sensitive, deliberate decision was made to present a Garden of Eden version of ourselves. Still, it makes me wonder. If violent aggression for the purpose of domination exists on earth, does it exist everywhere? Would other planets likewise have war, rape, greed, and slavery? Are those things inescapable? If they are not inescapable, why don’t we escape them? If we don’t acknowledge them, will they go away? If only life could imitate such galactic, ‘message in a bottle’ selections. I mean, if life imitates art and art imitates interstellar records…. Ahhh, the lure of idealistic ponderings.
The process of compiling an interstellar record is, indeed, intriguing, but what I find significant is that art making operates in a comparable manner, often just as unilaterally but perhaps not quite so utopian. Similarly the contents of my work present a deliberate snapshot, carry messages, and have a certain symbolic quality. I have developed a way of working two-dimensionally in which I put drawings inside spaces, which are inside a larger, painted space, which occupies a still larger space, which could then be transported to a different large space in a far-away place (hopefully this conjures somewhat the process of compiling an interstellar record). Why, I often ask myself? Why am I compelled to do this? For the very same reason the Golden Record was assembled—to communicate a version of the human story. The story according to Aesop. The gospel according to Luke. The story according to 20th Century Fox. The story according to Carravagio. Janis Joplin. Janine Antoni. Me. Inevitably, it becomes a question of which worldview gets adopted. Which aspects of the culture are reflected, should be reflected, could be reflected? Reality needs some gloss. Who looks when it’s not pretty? Does beauty change essence? What have you got behind your back? What we reveal announces the impression we wish to give. What we conceal keeps the game going. The truth is always under the influence. Just whose influence is perpetually up for grabs.
I genuinely wish I could nudge the world an inch closer to peaceful co-existence.
I’m not talking about effecting seismic change like the Chilean earthquake that shifted the earth’s axis, or inciting public outrage by means of a large-scale, bold, dramatic act. What I have in mind is more of a persistent, gently powerful, and (dare I say) elegant push that is aligned with similar efforts to induce a shift in human consciousness. As an individual, I have strong, clear, passionate sentiments concerning the state of the world and how it has come to be this way. As an artist, it is my job to concretize my ideas surrounding such concerns.
I understand the inherent nature of human aggression and compassion, and I am painfully aware of our extensive history of power struggles (with all its attendant levels of violence), domination and submission. Those things will most assuredly continue, ad infinitum. The historical factors and biological or psychological obstacles notwithstanding, I do believe in the potential to incrementally shift the balance away from destructiveness. I think this can be done through awareness, compassion, and personal accountability. The latter is the most important component in the activation of change, for it must begin in the smallest, most primary place—the self. I want to believe in the amelioration of societal ills. I need to believe in it, which means it is vitally necessary that I take whatever action is in my power, lest I "weep for the lives my wishes never led."
An implication of current scientific research, such as quantum theory, Bell’s theorem and entanglement, is that, to a certain degree, we create our reality. Princeton physicist John Wheeler states, “The universe does not exist 'out there,' independent of us. We are inescapably involved in bringing about that which appears to be happening. We are not only observers. We are participators. In some strange sense, this is a participatory universe. Physics is no longer satisfied with insights only into particles, fields of force, into geometry, or even into time and space. Today we demand of physics some understanding of existence itself.”
Can profound intentions of respect for one another be correlated with downshifts in aggressive or violent social behavior? The Global Consciousness Project headed by Roger Nelson runs experiments with Random Events Generators located around the world to examine the effects of human intention and attention on reality and to test whether human consciousness extends a field around the earth. The GCP website states, “Our purpose is to examine subtle correlations that may reflect the presence and activity of consciousness in the world. We predict structure in what should be random data, associated with major global events. When millions of us share intentions and emotions the GCP/EGG network data show meaningful departures from expectation. Subtle but real effects of consciousness are important scientifically, but their real power is more direct. They encourage us to help make essential, healthy changes in the great systems that dominate our world. Large-scale group consciousness has effects in the physical world. Knowing this, we can use our full capacities for creative movement toward a conscious future.”
My personal action on this matter is an ongoing sculptural project entitled dissolution. This is a series of strategically placed, time-based salt sculptures that interact with the environment as well as the local population of curious passersby or nourishment-seeking wildlife. I accurately and carefully carve guns from pure white salt blocks and place them in urban and rural settings—conspicuous, yet unobtainable in a city; available as a lick for animals in the woods. Over a period of time the weapons dissolve back to the earth, leaving a temporary scar or wound in the local vegetation, in a beseechingly spiritual transition of the sculpture from a weapon into an innocuous, common dietary mineral.
This body of work continues to evolve as I experiment, ponder, and wait—until I can resume work at my Santa Fe studio, which can accommodate a corrosive material. I continue to refine the imagery and determine the most effective method of documentation. I am toying with the idea of creating something out of the nearly dissolved piece. I have concentrated on the gun as a symbol of violence, but am considering other items—as milagros, so to speak. Milagros are physical manifestations of prayers, a depiction of the focus of a supplication. The tradition can be traced to Iberian Spain and has endured for over 2000 years through several changes in religion as well as radical shifts in culture.
During the time I carve a salt gun, I feel my hands working as an extension of my heart and notice myself examining my own aggressive, impatient actions and behaviors, which spring from emotions such as fear, vulnerability, isolation, jealousy, or extreme disappointment. I find that the act of carving, which is essentially 3-dimensional drawing, requires patience and a loving care similar to that necessary to raise children. It occurs to me that I could turn this into a communal activity, a co-op, a teaching opportunity. For instance, I could teach the skill of carving to local teenagers, thus not only expanding the scale and scope of the project, but also benefiting the community. Perhaps that is how to gain that inch.
Let me ask you to ponder, as I often do, a single life unfolding, or an entire country’s history unraveling. Also consider how various cultures inhabiting earth interact, or contemplate complex, mysterious energy connections among the planets and bodies in the galaxy. In the act of speculation, on any given topic, visual fragments surface in the thinker’s mind that derive from an inexhaustible source of previously perceived and potentially available information. Of course other sensations emerge as well, but the focus here is on the visual. These highly personal visual remnants or projections inform and shape, in varying degrees, each individual and collective experience, as well as the understanding of that experience. As each current situation becomes the past and new data is accumulated, perception expands. What evolves is a dynamic, intangible aggregate of the actual and the invented—our very own perspective. On any given topic. In terms of a generally accepted perspective, we often refer to it as a paradigm. If we own it, we like to call it ‘truth’.
Quantum theory says that nature comes in bits and pieces (quanta) and that, at the subatomic level, energy and mass continuously change into each other. Now, more than ever, information comes to us in much the same manner, as a constant flow of snippets; a medley of veracity, deception, persuasion, and fantasy. No matter what place, space, or time we find ourselves in, our knowledge, memories, and desires—much of which emanates from the constant flow of cultural snippets—take up residence and color our experience within that space.
In my works on paper, I allow snippets, in the form of graphite drawings and transfers curiously tucked inside spaces shaped like knots, drips and twists, to randomly occupy the pictorial space of gestural brushstrokes. The drawings become bits and pieces, if you will, of our cultural heritage or an invented future— veils of understanding. Memories are reconfigured; found images are transformed; chimerical visions unfold.
In areas surrounding the drawings, expressive or strongly intentional, minimalist strokes of color or black ink construct arenas referencing location, architecture, landscape, or the universe—our solar system and beyond. The latest works begin to incorporate actual space and objects. Graphite—customarily used to keep written records, plan, and decipher—creates condensed accounts of the past and glimpses of the future as they freely play within these constructed settings. Primary and secondary space, graphite and paint continually trade focal position, vying for the viewer’s attention.
My intention is for two disparate visual elements to stand side by side. One is ephemeral, at times a ghostly, almost sculpturally formed image; a sensitive and personal ‘handwritten’ interpretation or reference. The other is spatial and is grounded in form, volume, and color, or, at times, referred to through gesture—marks that can be read but also felt. Space, gesture, and scale contextualize the drawings—which derive from memories, cultural images, or imagining—and present them within an abstracted or actual space as a series of endless possibilities for altering perspective.
We are captivated by our own history, inasmuch as we are held captive by it. By history, I mean that ‘continuous, systematic narrative of past events and human affairs’. 1 The past can refer to the appearance of Homo sapiens some 200,000 years ago or what happened 15 minutes earlier. We have been so fascinated by such affairs that we have recorded them in every imaginable fashion. We have inscribed accounts on cave walls, stone tablets and in tombs. We spread the word through manuscripts, newspapers, radio, television and the internet. We have transformed and enshrined momentous events on stages, in stories, songs, poems, paintings and sculptures. We have exalted our pursuits with monuments and architecture. Our current capability for constant communication allows a flood of up-to-the-minute updates. Our history defines us. Or does it?
Through drawing I coax something fresh out of what was, something unusual out of what could be. In my works on paper I stage an alternative history. I reconfigure and position images as a way of reshaping and re-imagining events and interactions. I can revise priorities, erase grievances, poke fun, change characters, or upstage the hero. It is under my dominion to change the power dynamic, turn vulnerabilities into strengths, unleash my anger, exalt the humble, revalue the feminine, and create new species.2 I can indulge myself in delicious memories and desires, allow unpredictability to prevail.3 The images and the flow of the drawing process are orchestrated according to the motif of the particular piece.
The renderings range from explicit to covert. The marks can shout or suggest. When I wish to put forth a clear statement, I make graphite transfers of found images and focus on the juxtaposition of the elements. In these works, the selection of images is critical for reinventing the cultural tale. Suggestive and representationally imprecise renderings emphasize the intention of sensation over recognition of forms. In this case the drawing process becomes an explorative investigation in which I release the graphite onto the paper and guide the image into revealing itself. I shape, exaggerate, distort, caress, erase, and refine the visible marks. Thinking sits down. Feeling, watching, groping, breathing: stage front. There is a bit of tension between chance and controlled manipulation as the forms unfold. These forms can be delicate, powerful, fragile, obsessive, well-mannered, or throbbing. They are not professional. They want to be enticing and refined. People pay dearly for what lurks behind these marks, clamor for it. It cannot be wrought in a cage. I invite a display of inherent femininity, I welcome rude revelations. I wish to demonstrate intelligence. I want to look underneath. How, exactly, does that work? How do politeness and intensely courageous curiosity stand side by side? Exactly.
Both techniques—selecting images and drawing—forge a connection to my personal vision for a transcendent reality. I have been regarding these drawings as ‘glimpses of possibility’ and inserting them into masked out areas within a painted setting. I recently developed this way of working and with each successive piece I expand and refine my ideas, methods, and materials. I continually play with scale as well as strengthen the images and the mise-en-scéne. I am also working to push the notion of the ‘glimpse’ and give the images a more ghostly form by somehow getting them to ‘float’. My next step is to take them off the paper and situate them elsewhere—on the wall, floor, ceiling, or various objects. Hmm-m-m-m-m projection of drawings could be cool.
The drawings have also generated plans for future sculptures. For example, one that portrays human relationships distilled into a pattern of hostility and intimacy, a rising and falling blend of recognition and idealism. The initial sketches depict veiled, writhing and entwined bodies suggestive of passionate aggression or affection, which rest on an undulating, elliptical platform reminiscent of a roller coaster. Glimpses of cultural accoutrements dangle below the cloaked figures. My past experience carving stone naturally indicates fabrication in marble, although, particularly after seeing Maurizio Cattalan’s marble draped corpses at the New Museum, I am exploring other materials. The woes of lingering. At this point, I am committed to creating only outdoor sculptural work, made from materials that either withstand or interact with the elements of nature.
These images, whether rendered in graphite or sculpted, completed or proposed, express a longing to transform and rebalance the culture, a desire to touch them into being and see them exist in the world. Likewise, they represent awareness that we are who we are and we do what we do. We fuck and we fuck up, so sit back, relax and let the entertainment begin.