To Rianne Edwards-Switzer : searching beyond what one knows is not comfortable , certainty left far behind /and so many many unpaid or poorly paid hours are these things simply a part of any professional life ,/ and is the desire to get lost and to risk being denied life in familiar comfortable territory … does this mean teaching one’s self without a text book or personal guide book to follow; or any guarantee that the truths discovered have any truth beyond proving that one should keep trying ? Trying even most in the face of inevitable moments of self doubt. ?
Self doubt is a real thing for many people , humility, fear, and vulnerability … this state of being doesn’t seem like something that deserves to have monuments made about it but… I seem always to arrive at that kind of outcome. I feel tenuous, I feel life is very fragile , that consciousness is ethereal and that fortitude and all of my physical energy serves people maybe…?/and a god/truth/nature that is incomprehensible? Well thankfully the truth of that incomprehensibility is encouraging and beautiful in a way? I’m glad that no amount of science and no individual can ever know it all …any sense that any single person owns the entire comprehensive truth is wrong , no? …so while most people seek certainty in their investments and work in life, I guess I hope that on behalf of people who may feel vulnerable often…I am burning my flame, my body and spirit not as if I offer an example but because I don’t know what else to do. Nothing else makes more sense? Is that a set of worthy words? Are any of the sculptures worthy documents testifying to the effort to make sense of my being here?
You know some academics with full tenure and pensions and benefits and parking and prestige from a life of exemplary work agree that Michelangelo’s Rondinini Pieta is the best work of his entire life. Not the David, not the pieta in St. Peter’s but the one work he made when his health was failing and he was no longer certain he was immortal and a kind of god. I learned that in first year art school while hoping that my hardworking family from Homesteader roots might believe in an art career that delivers art that is in service to a community. I was confused by the paradox that heroic public art that lets a community believe they could vanquish their foes in a heroic way like the sculpture of David offers would ever be less value than a quiet somber expression of sorrow and even doubt…as the Rondinini Pieta does….it took me most of my life to see uncertainty as one of the greatest of human states of being.
Fear is honest, frailty is definite and humility is far more useful to those who are not arrogant and are not the vanquishers of anyone, no? If one wants to serve heroic vanquishing types then of course they should follow their hearts. But to me, my experiences lead me to accept my tenuous existence, health, job, circumstances…family…everything leads me to think I am always going to end up making work about fear, vulnerability and Sculpture is what I chose to keep doing in the face of those inevitable feelings? Does that make any sense?
I’m laying in bed bathed in the light of a full moon. What soft gentle light? What world council allows Putin to attack others and threaten nuclear war ? What society gives Elon Musk or China or Jeff Bezos the authority to fill that sky or that moon or that Mars with their money making schemes? What innovative brilliant person would ever give their lives to serving as a politician who must answer more to truck drivers and lobbyists from prevailing industries more than university students or healthcare experts? Even well meaning good minds can’t read enough to comprehend how to communicate to the masses of people who fear they will never have a home, let alone a mortgage on a average priced 850k home?
Vulnerable? Fear of US style healthcare insurance? Fear of an emerging class system? Fear that one is running out of time…what do any of us do in the light of the moon and god to honestly keep the people we hope to serve company?
I surely fear that I am not worthy of doing much…but circumstances have given me yet another day and because I can, I must ! I must try to serve. I must try, but , in truth…fear I am far from able.
maybe I am like everyone or at least someone else…