There is something about sitting on a hale bale with the warmth of the morning sun warming the chest, A good cup of tea, views all around and a cemetery in the distance to keep it all in a perspective of impermanence. In this moment the question arises, what needs to be improved? I spend much of my life trying to make it better, better then what? Than this? Even when it seems so hard the hale bale just rots away in the field or becomes feed to the livestock, the cemetery plots with corps’s rotting as well feeding the continuum. It’s all alright I remind myself, nothing to improve nothing to solve, just to take it in, experience the moment and let it be.
There is something about sitting in a cabin on a blustery, cloudy day with the cold of winter approaching. The death of summer celebrated in the fires of reds gold’s oranges and the yellow leaves that surround, falling in their final act in the cycle of life and composted death. I am still saddened by endings; I have yet to fully grasp the concept that death is not loss, just a birth into something new. Relationships have ended, fathers have died, dreams have passed unmanifested and life just continues on, like a river, swirling thorough obstructions, slowing down, speeding up but never ceasing to flow continuously towards the sea of renewal.
Today my first east coast solo sculpture show dies. Today is take down day. It’s been a good show, some say the best this gallery has ever housed. This space and this show of art will never be again. Today the shift from the grandiosity of pedestals, track lighting, newspaper articles, radio interviews, videos, guestbook’s, receptions and ceremonies, to crates and bubble wrap, moving pads, packing of the trailer, loading the van, clamping the Burden Boat to the roof rack with hopes of no rain, all to find storage in hallways and bathrooms, high places in the studio and any nitch that has space for another sculpture. This is where trust in the material world and Art collide. Twenty-one rather ambitious sculptures a show created over two solid years plus works dating back nearly fourteen years, a big manifestation of physical labor, creative energy and time investment. The payoff ??? Well visitors to the gallery loved it, absolutely zero sales, a perverse satisfaction of taking on the universe and saying to it’s face “I showed up” and I’m back in the studio excited by the new works for the next show in January. I know in the soul of my being this is my mission now in life to make these objects, I do not really no why but something so alive happens during the process of making that just tells me so. I do trust, I trust the funding will arrive to keep this going, it always has and it always will. The rent is paid the firewood is stacked and the winter survival nuts are stored at least long enough to manifest the next show. Ah trust what a ride.
We never know how our creative work affects the world. It may be hanging in your rafters for the next few months or years, until it's shown again, but the energy behind it has been put out into the world and its inhabitants. And btw, don't forget the impact of your Burden Boat ceremony. As a participant from afar, I was touched by it, and most appreciative of the opportunity to rid myself of a little more psychic baggage.
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