Back in Floyd VA

Back from California about three weeks plus and I’m sitting in the same chair I did way back when (the morning of Thanksgiving, sketchbook still open to the page). Quite the journey indeed, 10 days became 7 months, totally unexpected and I praise having the lifestyle that can change in such an instant. Well, awesome it was to sink into a major sculpture and be paid for it. Wow, during the project I was so on, loving every day starting at the gym working in the studio having deep connections of love and healing, I was on top of my game.

Then I finished the project..... Thought I was prepared for a slight dip but jeez did I go down. Realizing that I just built a 40,000 pound tombstone to honor the death of thousands of native peoples where genocide occurred during the gold rush and to the environment that is still dead from the white mans greed. This was all fine as it needed to be expressed, the piece has become a prayer wheel a healing circle and I am good even proud with all that. But down I went into self doubt, loneliness, grief, bewilderment, feeling for the Indian, feeling exposed I started smoking American spirit cigarettes and caught a habit. Forget the gym, work and the game I was on top of. The game all of a sudden seemed like a total farce and me just a player in something that meant nothing. Oh what self loathing I fell into. Managed to pull it together enough to throw myself a 50th birthday party a loving self act that manifested in so much realized love in return. Still in need of some deep healing it was time to return to the blue ridge mountains here in Floyd VA. Back in the woods, swimming in the fresh spring fed pond walking in the woods sometimes barefoot sometimes naked. Back into the nature that surrounds me, back into a primal place that touches my sole and reminds me as alone as I am in this world, I am alone with all. Got off the smokes got on the path of health, eating from the garden walking for miles doing my yoga, meditation, contemplation reading the good books and loving all the aspects this self I inhabit.

This path as an open sensitive man / artist has it's perks and it's valleys. I am grateful for the emotional width, I feel alive and I do feel solid and healthy enough to handle the ride on the swing set of my life. I have a place to channel it all, the physical presence of my sculpture can capture whatever it is that I am facing. Perhaps I am in deeper then I realize and I do feel I am in deep with some new self realizations that need time to be contemplated lived with bathed in and taken to heart. I love being back in my little paradise, so peaceful it is time in solitude and time in the studio. The creative muse has a hold on me, her energy of force is flowing. I have seven new sculptures in the works another couple right behind those and an inspiration that flows through me that energizes my body to do whatever it takes to work the work.

I am happy beyond my wildest dreams at times, alone at times I find a smile on my face. There are times I slip into "whats the point" and I know this as I have experienced the dark night of the soul, I know now I do not need nor want to know the point, it only brings me to suffer a question with no answer, I find peace in accepting the is is enough. So for now creating art takes me down a path that leads me to a my own bliss and brilliance and this is my gift both within and without. No real purpose or reason it just feels good and to the best of my knowledge I am not hurting anyone in the process.