
form shadows. (appearance) Its the slow gradients of time and experience that cumulatively shape our particular slice of reality. The closer to the source of illumination, the more we perceive to have depth.
cast shadows. (interference) Its the projection of shape upon another. The instantaneous reference to the direction of illumination in stark contrast with the chasm in between.
foreshadows. (referents) Its the essential personal relationship of subjects connecting through and with the means of objects and vice versa.
Shadows.
I’ve had a forced sabbatical from painting and facilitating festivals this past month. I’m good at filling my life to the brim. Self generated stress cycles disconnect me from the community that I’m ironically trying to support. Wouldn’t you know that this is the perfect time for a little brown spider to bite my chest. My body, my manic activities and idealism came to a grinding halt this month, while leaving me to discover much of my sense of value in the fragility of life and relationships.
Nothing reminds me of what has been left unsaid/undone more than the weightlifting weezy sound of anaphylactic shock at 3 in the morning. Fighting myself for life, my swollen bronchioles make it feel like I’m drowning in the heavy air. I’ve got right now to learn how to cry but not the breath to cry out. This is not rest. This is not Sabbath. This is justice and the pain of honest reflection. Emptiness is a double edged sword that opens the fullest of schedules.
Making room for time.
With myself deflated, contemplating my compulsive carpe diem free jazz behavior, the universe has made it more than evident that a good rest is essential for a good rhythm. I’m really good at proclaiming goals, projects, and new ideas but I’ve had to stop. At least long enough to be present to my location and the relationships most proximate. I’m hoping health is in the cards for the near future and I know that its not simply going to fall into my lap, my community, and my culture. On that note, I’m going to take a nap now and retreat for a little while into the shadows. See you on the other side.
Marina Abramovic meets Ulay
“Marina Abramovic and Ulay started an intense love story in the 70s, performing art out of the van they lived in. When they felt the relationship had run its course, they decided to walk the Great Wall of China, each from one end, meeting for one last big hug in the middle and never seeing each other again. at her 2010 MoMa retrospective Marina performed ‘The Artist Is Present’ as part of the show, a minute of silence with each stranger who sat in front of her. Ulay arrived without her knowing it and this is what happened.”
“En los años 70, Marina Abramovic mantuvo una intensa historia de amor con Ulay. Pasaron 5 años viviendo en una furgoneta realizando toda clase de performances. En 1988, cuando su relación ya no daba para más, decidieron recorrer la Gran Muralla China, empezando cada uno de un lado, para encontrarse en el medio, abrazarse y no volver a verse nunca más. En 2010 el MoMa de Nueva York dedicó una retrospectiva a su obra. Dentro de la misma, Marina compartía un minuto en silencio con cada extraño que se sentaba frente a ella. Ulay llegó sin que ella lo supiera, y esto fue lo que pasó”
(Source: carlosbaila, via mattfractionblog)
I get frustrated with the title artist. I dont even want to make paintings…at least the objects. (I really hate selling myself) I imagine shaking all of my work and making it disappear like an etch-a-sketch.
But I love painting. Like singing and making love, its expressive, transcendant and life making. Like exploring, its an adventure and search to find the gems of the journey. Like truth, it informs the present and reminds us to stay humble, or try again, or simply to encourage our continued learning, growing, and transforming. I love the process of becoming. of participating.
I love sharing. My life is a disasterous gift. To myself and to anyone who would receive it. I want to witlessly give it all away. I really love people. For all of the messes we make relationally, ecologically, morally and otherwise…. our story is still a diverse and unfolding mystery. I long to be more human. to see through many eyes. walk in many shoes. taste, feel, and know beyond my own limitations. I love exploring our mysteries.
I love playing. Letting go of fear is life giving. I am not a calculator, yet taking risks still must be tempered by wisdom. There is a place where the blank canvas is not a daunting task but the muse herself. She beckons us out of our heads to create with our hearts & establish, in the long run, a new kind of being.
I love the draw of love and hope for the marks I make( and the ones we make together) to find a way into and through this mystery.
Tears turn crystalline in the cold.
Soft and silent, they recollect on the ground.
Water, still sacred to the body, takes a new form.
Peace, my dear friend.
My stomach is in knots. I’m packed and leaving for Africa. The advent season always gets me meditating on Mary. Making room where there seems to be no room. Giving birth to new life is a “stretch”, a social risk, and is far from easy. What better icon of transformation is an unmarried homeless pregnant refugee woman that is about to give birth to the king! Wonderfully scandalous in all the right ways.
What will this next day hold? My body shakes with anticipation.
Diaspora, 8.5inx14.5in, acrylic on paper 2012
(The Art of Giving opens this Friday night, December 7th @Mattie Rhodes Gallery)
The art sales will go towards Mattie Rhodes programming and the Wine sales(with the show’s paintings as the labels) will go towards arts scholarships in Oaxaca, Mexico.
In the summer of 1996, I left Kansas City to go to college in Los Angeles. It was the first time I remember feeling displaced. The first year was hell. My heart was with my friends, my family, my place. I was always talking about KC, always calling back home, always struggling with the new and strange horizon lines.
It seems we never know what we have until its gone.
On my first return home, something changed. I found myself always talking of LA, always projecting about future projects, already loosening the binds of the familiar for an ever larger experience of unforeseen life.
Home has a way of finding its way to us when our vantage of place is on the move.
Diaspora literally means “through sowing, or spreading out”. In agricultural terms, this displacement is the beginning of where the old life is transformed into the new.
Many of my friends work with the Bhutanese and Nepali refugees here in Kansas City. My travels through the Himalayas and my KCK friends have taught me that the national boundaries do not make up our identities. The refugee knows how precious home is, wherever that home may be found. In you. In me. In here. In now. We’re all refugees sowing our lives in the land of each other.
Next month I will be travelling to a place on Earth that has been the home of humans for all of human history. I will walk in the great rift valley of western Kenya amongst the Pokot people. Continuing a project(and relationship) fostered by my friends at BNIM and my community at Jacob’s Well, myself and a few others will be helping with the building of a school in Asilong near the border of Uganda.








Gravity is spacetime’s flawed attempt to recreate the past.
There are two journeys that we all must make (exterior and interior).
The exterior journey enfolding is relational. It forges bonds through shared experiences.
Its filled with sites, destinations, memories and people.
The interior journey unfolding is foundational. It loosens bonds through honest expression.
It feels like challenge, exploration, learning and play.
I spent most of my time this July in Strasbourg, sharing ordinary life with my dear friends Jim and Melissa. Jim and I would get into deep conversations after nescafe in the morning. Melissa might chime in if our mutual appreciated rabbit trails ventured into scientific, religious or politically charged themes. While they translated documents during the day, I ventured out to play charades for food. (my pocket full of French didn’t help me in Germany)I purchased an old steel road bike to get around. On the weekends, Melissa lead us into the surrounding forests and mountains (Strasbourg is located between the Black Forest and the Vosges). In the evenings we would all retreat back to the olympics, internet updates, and more french culinary benefits. Life was meaningful, deep, and slow.
I hit the road six days before my cousin’s wedding(in Dieppe) with 800 km to cross by bicycle. Instead of following farmlands across France I decided to go up through Luxembourg, across Belgium and down the coast of Normandy. It took 5 min to rediscover my trail name from the Pacific Crest Trail (Lost&Found -2007) as I had managed to escape the scope of my google printout’s view. With a compass and some perseverance, I found my way.
Each night I stealth camped off the beaten path. Outside of Brussels I crashed and almost called the adventure off but with a little luck and the kindness of strangers, my wounds were mostly mended and my cycle became recycled. I was awarded a shower, couch, and breakfast by a rural flemish man at a roadside Turkish Beer garden in trade for facebook friendship. (Can I say trail angel?) I discovered that I love “american food” which translates into merguez sausages and veggies stuffed in a baguette with harissa and covered with belgian fries. My respect for topography grew.
My ankle creaked and nostrils flared as the Normandy shores pulled down the skies upon my waterproof gear (fixed with dental floss and bike tube patches) and soothed my sundried skin. I had arrived in the land of my father with the added poetry from my french-viking heritage. When the sea calms, it is time to move. When the sea roars, it is time to love. The wedding was beautiful, vast, and instant.
In the end the two journeys are always one.
I
m 34
the wind and water (kapha-vata) are balancing to bring fire(heart).
While emptying all my sd cards, getting ready to document my journey across France, I found a little piece of joy that I thought was worth sharing.
I spent most of the day yesterday up to my ears in the continuing saga to create a pop-up book. Only a few days to go! Anyways, mid x-acto/”yes” glue catastrophe in the making, Bill Cardwell rescued me and took me out only to drop me off at Livestrong to meet Joe Plummer and the rest of the Shins.(had a really awkward entrance to the green room as the guy who painted Joe’s drums.) As a very welcomed aside, their merch matron Rachel and I got into a surprise conversation flowing from culture to technology to astrology and the power of suggestion to the Cardwell pulling me out into the crowd to actually watch the show. ha.
Buzz Beach Ball was nuts. 15000 people to watch or get harassed by because you have a beard. Post show bbq by the tour bus with fireworks?!! I mean forth of July scale in the backdrop. Our little crew left the hot dogs and fled the sublimely drunken mobs (from $10 beers) to see Jessica’s own band (Deep Sea Diver) play the CzarBar the same evening. One word. Refreshing. I closed my eyes a bit and just listened. My feet shuffled in that awkward way that makes your knees turn and I definitely was walking the fine line between dancing and just being into the music.
Contrast helps with clarity but often masks how the different worlds are just a part of the same one.
Radio broadcasted stadium greenroom escorted sticker badged festivals show the artists success but the cost of making “it” is often the authentic connection/resonance pat on the back buy a teeshirt as intentional support and wear it proudly the next day like I did in high school with a mix of community and encouragement that prove that the drive, the time to make, the effort to express is all worth it… not just to reach masses but to actually touch people and potentially move their hearts.
We always get what we sow. We dont always now what we are sowing or that we are sowing.
the bike ride home at 3am took the rest of my energy leaving only space for dreams and memories.. that is of course until the sun rose today… and the journey continues.