June 15, 2023
There is a colorful, creative aporia in the free play of walking through a Staples store, a Target, an Ikea, a Bed Bath & Beyond (RIP). The aporia of consumerism. Possibilities extend in many directions. Sensory whirls of human habilibility. We feel compelled to purchase, but in the abstraction of the music, the empty halls, the lush shelves of interesting objects, something more spacious is alluring. It is a willingness to participate as an observer, the imaginative wealth of poverty, the romance of illusions, the charm of mere appearance, the emptiness of form, the grace of materialism.
What is the reason to do art? What utility does spirituality have? In the face of materialistic anthropocentrist industry, where does the money mind bridge over to the spirit of life/death, if at all? The answer, I believe, is in the American West, in the spirit of the landscape and the people who have inhabited it. It is the wisdom of eons in the youthful optimism as twin spaciousnesses: infinite extent and infinite potential. They are married here, old and new, in the west, atop the dead body of the Farallon plate. Openness, openness, openness. Gone, gone beyond, gone beyond it all, open-eyed, sobeit