"While we dream and drift on the magic river the busy little men with their gargantuan appliances are hard at work, day and night, racing against the time when the people of America might possibly awake to discover something precious and irreplaceable about to be destroyed."
[written while floating down the colorado river at glen canyon before it was drowned and destroyed.)
Wilderness, the word itself is music.
Wilderness, wilderness....We scarcely know what we mean by the term, though the sound of it draws all whose nerves and emotions have not yet been irreparably stunned, deadened, numbed by the caterwauling of commerce, the sweating scramble for profit and domination.
....But the love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need--if only we had the eyes to see. Original sin, the true original sin, is the blind destruction for the sake of greed of this natural paradise which lies all around us--if only we were worthy of it.
if only indeed.
1. my dog -one of the best things to ever come into my life, (still challenging at times), but man, he makes me laugh. he has begun burying his bone in the backyard and will proudly come to me with a nose covered in dirt every few hours.
2. my new lawn mower. it's quiet, it's green, it weighs 17 pounds, it's non-polluting and it doesn't ever give off toxic fumes.
4. seeds -i am planting them everywhere because they are cheap and practically effortless. this week I am also creating a large quantity of seed bombs to be handed out by my publisher at Bookexpo next month. how lucky i am to in part be playing with dirt and clay for a living.
5. rooibos tea -so good with milk and honey.
6. ed abbey -traipsing through the utah desert with him has made my life more full this week. this one is going on my shelf as one of my favourites that I will return to again and again, like May Sarton or Emily Carr.
7. Kiva -based on the concept of "microfinancing", created by nobel prize winner Mohammed Yunus, kiva is a company that lets you connect with and loan money (interest free) to unique small businesses in the developing world. you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. watch the 15 min. documentary here. having had people to help me during the course of my career, it feels so great that I can now do the same for others, in effect sharing my success. i am hooked.
8. worsted witch -any hesitation i had in sharing my political beliefs in the online world have fallen away after seeing the unabashedly direct and heartfelt offerings of Jasmin. i am humbled and excited everytime i visit.
9. reading about andalusia -where i will be in about a months time.
10. dinner at Defazio's pizza in Troy NY -picture a cute little hole in the wall pizza joint with checkered table cloths, and an old fashioned italian deli next door. the owners are quite old now and eat dinner EVERY NIGHT in their own restaurant! it's the sweetest thing ever, (there are only 8 tables and it is always packed). now picture homemade organic sauce, pizza crust, pesto, and pasta. You can even bring your own wine to have with dinner. I would eat there every night too if it was mine. I will try and take some photos of it for you.
found this quote in the library yesterday in a book about conceptual artists with a buddhist perspective. in it I read about artist Lee Ming Wei, whose work is based on issues of trust and the 'art of living', (art about daily life). this thread that runs through my own process these days. (if i told you about some of his work you would not believe me, so go read about it for yourself. okay, i'll give you a hint, he is pregnant! yes, it's true. read about it here.)
i have been conducting a little experiment of my own, though not nearly as daring. it involves designating large periods of non-computer time and documenting them in my journal. the results after two weeks with a couple of days off during each are rather startling. i hesitate to share them here with the knowledge that some of you may not like hearing them, as i am critiquing the very medium in which you are currently partaking, and quite possibly enjoying. the truth is, i enjoy it too, immensely. but lately i have started to see ways that it is taking from me more that it is giving, and this belief has been echoed by several web friends who have found it necessary to take an extended break from not just blogging but the internet.
the main issue, a common thread between many of us, is a disconnection with life in the real world. symptoms:
-diminished contact with friends and family (speaking in person or on the phone with them has dwindled or is non existent, social life greatly limited over time) this one seems to directly co-relate to an increase in 'web friends'. while these relationships are also great, they are not the same as speaking on the phone or having lunch in a public place.
-diminished participation in/with nature
-zoned out feeling (disconnectedness)
-large portions of time in each day unaccounted for (productivity greatly affected in all areas of life, house cleaning, creativity, work, etc.)
Edward Abbey in Desert Solitaire talks about the limitation of the machine, he is referring to any number of mechanical gadgets, and says that they tend to separate a human from their environment. while trying to write one evening he describes using a generator to produce light,
"I have cut myself off completely from the greater world which surrounds the man made shell. The desert and the night are pushed back--I can no longer participate in the them or observe; I have exchanged a great and unbounded world for a small comparatively meager one."
If I am to be honest here, (which is always my goal), i will admit that this is what often results in using the computer, this cutting myself off from the world. How ironic that the premise of the medium is a network that connects us to other humans. but there is little to do with nature and the earth here, this is just one small aspect of the human species, (and not available to all).
before you get your back up over this (as I'm sure some of you will), i should explain that i am only seeking some kind of balance with it for myself. a return to moderation (as when I started). this weekend I went to a garden center and spent much of my time planting and covered in dirt. It felt so good to be outside again in the sun. I sit surrounded by pots of daisies, geraniums, lobeilia, basil and rosemary. my house is cleaner, i am reading more, and i feel more at peace than i have been for months. (the first hours are marred by a tense feeling, of needing to go do work, the urge to check email. after several hours this starts to fade and over the course of the day i feel myself becoming more present in the world.)
by the end of the weekend, going back to the computer feels uncomfortable. today i wish to pack a bag and wander aimlessly about. i have been watching the films of charles & rae eames again and feel the urge to try my hand at a film. nothing fancy, just documenting things in my environment.
in the words of duchamp, today "I am a lazy artist."
and it's the best thing in the world.
The sun has come out and I feel almost as if it is something entirely new and foreign, something i need to explore further to understand it's ways.
yesterday i painted a chalkboard on my wall. one dollar worth of paint has made my life infinitely better. i have always had chalkboards in my studio, but i love that this one is permanent, that you actually write on the walls, (i am contemplating doing the entire wall). i feel as though i am drawing on my house in the manner of simon, (do americans know about simon?). for years i have wanted to live in a house where all of the things in it were actually drawings. I always loved the sets in the stop animated Paddington Bear series from the 70's, nothing is more beautiful than a three dimensional drawn version of the london subway in black ink, (complete with moving escalator).
my first inclination is to draw a door on my wall, some kind of portal to another world. or maybe a window. or a shelf with photos of my family.
this week i am reading the Death of Ivan Illych by tolstoy, (if you are canadian you may already know why i have chosen this.) Author Yann Martel (Life of Pi) announced in an article in the Globe and Mail this week that he decided that our prime minister needed more stillnes, and so every two weeks he is sending him a book to read. Upon hearing about this I laughed quite a bit. And then i thought let's be honest, couldn't we all use that? I've decided that I will read them all too, assuming I haven't read them already.
(If you are one of the few left who hasn't read Life of Pi I highly recommend it. I warn you, I was white knuckled through half of it, and one scene grossed me out more than any scene in any book i have read. i still can't think about it too much.)
This weekend I read a book of letters from Edward Abbey. his process of writing books sounds similar to my own:
"I always write in a kind of blind stupor anyway, with only the dimmest awareness of what i'm trying to say or do. The shotgun method, i call it: write many, many books in all directions, without taking much aim, and maybe just maybe at least once--you'll hit something. It worked for shakespeare. mark twain. who else?" ~Ed Abbey (fr. Postcards from Ed)
I have spent the morning doing interviews, the first of many in the next while. Those of the email variety are very time consuming, I find i must limit the amount of them I do so I can get my own work done. while I enjoy doing them as it helps me articulate my process but I must admit I am not one for reading anything in 'question and answer' format. I am not sure why this is, never could read plays either. I will only do it if it's someone I really want to know about. I think it's because it's a rather unnatural format, and the ones that are the most successful become conversation more than an interview. a back and forth dialogue.
I have come to understand that I cringe at the mention of the word "art". what is it this thing that we keep talking about? Actually it's more than cringing, there is a phyisical sensation combined with a realization that I want nothing to do with it whatsoever. It's been like this for the last couple of years and I'm only now figuring out why through doing these interviews.
When we talk about art we are often referring to a finished product of sorts, a painting, a sculpture, a book, a documentation of something, the medium that the 'artist' has used to capture an experience. This is probably just a semantical issue, have we confused the medium with the message? It is my belief that it is actually the experience of life that inspires the work which is the art. All to often I think people focus too much on the medium, which in my opinion is kind of irrelevant. Not kind of, completely. The real question to me is, "what inspired someone to express themselves?" What is the idea? The artist needs to ask the question, "What moves me?" not "should i use red or blue?"
I am not saying that there is not work where the medium is integral to the expression, but only that it is not really the main focus for me in terms of communicating an idea. I am enjoying contemplating that idea that there is no such thing as a finished piece of "art", this is just an illusion created by a world that connects it with commerce and turns it into a commodity. Can anyone ever sell an idea? or a process? is it possible?
i am more inclined to take thoreau's perspective that "art" might be more about "painting the very atmosphere and medium through which we look" than a physical manifiestation.
for an installation piece i would like to see a large room with people engaged in really mundane acts. tying shoes, feeding a baby, eating chips, washing the floor.
or maybe that defeats my point. maybe better to just do those things and call them art.
or just go about living and not call it anything.
Art, then, is an increase of life, a sort of competition of surprises that stimulates our conciousness and keeps it from becoming somnolent." ~Gaston Bachelard (fr. the poetics of space)
A recent podcast I did with Hip Tranquil Chick, (aka Kimberley Wilson). (run time is just under an hour, I'm a bit of a slow talker, prone to pauses between words.)
in the interview I mention masanobu fukuoka the inventor of seed bombs, who I discovered through my gardening expert/friend Gayla.
still on the couch. but the fever has gone. if only this cough would go away.
Requiem
When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
“It is done.”
People did not like it here.
(from the NY Times article, "Kurt Vonnegut, Writer of Classics of the American Counterculture, Dies at 84")
RIP mr. vonnegut, you will be greatly missed.
While working on the site for Wreck this Journal i noticed an incoming link from the blog for the Leo Burnett Advertising Agency in Toronto called "the fruits of imagination". When I clicked on it I found this post. (you must go read it so you will understand my response.)
and as you may have already seen, I posted the following response:
ha ha! oh the great irony to all of this jason is that many years ago when i was a fledgling illustrator i packed up my tidy little portfolio and made a trip to the leo burnett agency in hopes of finding some work. i do not recall who looked at my portfolio (it's possible it was a drop off), but no work ensued.
one might consider this a great gift because in due time i was to learn that i had no interest in pursuing advertising work (in fact i have turned away from the medium entirely), but instead I would eventually focus my energy on writing books, thus illustrating and devloping my own ideas. maybe I should thank leo burnett in part for my current success.
i am greatly flattered and humbled that you look to my work for inspiration. (and also to be positioned beside miranda july, someone i greatly admire.)
thank you for the post.
This just proves that sometimes (always) the universe knows better than you do.
Thank you Leo Burnett. Rejection is not always the terrible thing it appears to be when you are in it. Sometimes it is a great gift, you just have to wait to see what form it might possibly take later.
I am currently battling a cold that seems to be unwilling to release it's grip (i thought I was winning for the last couple of days) but I feel compelled to post these images I found in the recent issue of adbusters. If i ever had doubts about my crusade against the proliferation of advertising in the modern world (which are actually few to none these days), these images help to erase them completely.
The first image is a playground in India. I need not write any of my own feelings about this here, instead I'll let you experience your own reaction. suffice to say this is not the kind of world i want to live in.
The second image I am sad to say is from my country's national newspaper, The Globe and Mail. What is happening in this instance is that the lines between advertising and content are blurred in a literal way, (the fries are actually the article). I suppose one could say that 'at least they are not hiding their intent'. But I can pretty much guarantee that the article is not about healthy eating, (this would never be allowed). Those who argue that advertising does not affect content have no basis for an argument in this case.
Further reading of the issue reveals that according to some new poll data by Yankelovich the number of ads that an average urban dweller in a rich nation is exposed to on a daily basis has increased from 3,000 to 5,000. Recently an artist created this video which demonstrates how this is possible. (link via the anti-advertising agency).
i must add another link found at the aaa which had me laughing out loud. I can say that I wholeheartedly echo David Lynch's feelings on the subject of product placement.
correction: as one sleuth-like reader has uncovered, the "fries editorial" was run as an ad only, not as a combination editorial/ad (I misunderstood the article it seems). thank you ann for doing this investigation.
For years I have been searching for a copy of "Wandering" by Herman Hesse. Long out of print, it is a hard title to find, and on occasion very expensive due to it's elusiveness. While browsing contentedly in the RPI library I found an old copy of it, to my delight. Not only was this title there, but with it a whole shelf devoted to mr. hesse himself, full of old volumes, (for these are the ones i covet most). On this particular day there were two co-incidences that occurred (if indeed there are such things). but as I have mentioned before, my life seems full of them, one thing linked to another in some endless cycle of connectedness.
the first connection was that on this day I had been watching a short video of Milton Glaser, and later reading aloud a quote of his to my husband. When i picked up the hesse book i noticed that it was none other than glaser that had desgined the cover.
the second connection was that as you will notice in the previous post i spoke in earnest about the importance of talking to the trees. so i was excited to open up the hesse book to an excerpt precisely on this subject. not only advocating the practice of it but also interpreting the language in a very distinct way. I found this passage to be wonderfully profound, and while the references to god at times push my own more secular beliefs (read: non-religious), I think mr. Hesse in his interpretation has brilliantly presented a metaphor for life and sprirituality that many of us would benefit from hearing (at a time when we are feeling somewhat out of touch with the natural world/sense of spirituality). And I think it deserves to be read by as many people as possible, and even passed around at will.
(note to the publisher: if you do not like that fact that I am reproducing this text here, PLEASE PUT THE BOOK BACK IN PRINT! until you do i will be quoting passages at length, because quite honestly you could quote almost the whole thing. had i my own copy it would most definitely be underlined in it's entirety. and dog eared.)
And so for my readers, an excerpt from Herman Hesse's "Wandering":
(forgive me for quoting the whole thing, but i really couldn't cut any of it.) Read on if you feel so inclined. and then read it again. memorize it so that it's truth can live on in your body and you will always know it.
Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. The do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.
A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.
When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neighter here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.
A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one' suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.
So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts. Trees have long thought, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives that ours. The are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve and incomparable joy. Whoever has leaned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.