A Reading: Introduction In the Shadow of Sun Mountain

Introduction

In the Shadow of Sun Mountain (2020–2024)

I lived for years on twelve acres in the mountains of central Colorado, on land where the (Tabeguache) Ute had lived, traveled, gathered medicine, and buried their dead for thousands of years. That fact was not abstract to me. It was present every day. In the plants that grew around the house. In the way the light moved across the ground. In the silence that settled at dusk. The land didn’t feel empty. It felt inhabited by memory.

Sun Mountain rose nearby, not dramatically, not as a monument, but as a constant presence. Its shadow crossed the land in long, slow arcs. I began to understand that shadow less as an absence than as a reminder. Something persisted there, something unresolved. The land wasn’t haunted in the theatrical sense. It was honest. It held the residue of belief, fear, violence, endurance, and the stories that try to make those things bearable.

The plants themselves became teachers. This work is grounded in ethnobotany and spiritual ecology, not as metaphor, but as epistemology. The (Tabeguache) Ute understood land through use, relationship, and attention: which plants heal, which harm, which alter perception, which open ritual space, which return the body to the ground. Medicine was not separate from cosmology. Knowledge was embedded in practice, repetition, and care. Working among these plants, photographing them, painting them, and incorporating them into mixed media was a way of entering that lineage of attention, however imperfectly. The work does not claim that knowledge as mine, but it does acknowledge that plants carry memory and instruction, and that ways of knowing grounded in land and body predate and quietly challenge the abstractions that made conquest and erasure possible.

This work began with a question I couldn’t shake: why do human beings need an enemy to feel secure?

The Great Mullein Plant—Palladiotype from a wet collodion negative. 2022

I’d spent years photographing sites where violence had taken place, standing in spaces where something irreparable had occurred and sensing that the story told about those events was never the whole story. Living on that land intensified the question. The history of the (Tabeguache) Ute was not distant. It was botanical. Ecological. Embedded in place. Their knowledge of medicinal plants, spiritual botany, seasonal movement, and relationship to land was not a footnote to history. It was a worldview that had been violently interrupted.

The longer I lived there, the clearer it became that the question wasn’t only historical. It was psychological. What allows people to draw a line between “us” and “them” with such confidence? Why does that line harden so quickly? And what does our buried awareness of being temporary have to do with it?

My studio practice kept circling the same terrain. I worked with wet-collodion photography, color reversal prints, painting, and mixed media not out of nostalgia, but because these materials resist control. Collodion is unstable. A glass plate can appear solid and fail without warning. Silver remembers everything. Chemistry responds to temperature, breath, humidity, and time. You don’t dominate the process; you negotiate with it.

That instability mattered. It mirrored something I recognized in the human mind when it tries to manage fear, especially fear it refuses to name. What began as an old photographic process became a form of inquiry. The fractures in the plates, the fogging, the lifting emulsion, the breakage, they echoed the fractures I was seeing in our collective imagination.

Ernest Becker helped sharpen that connection. He argued that culture itself is a defense system built around the fact that we will die (Becker, 1973). We build worldviews to seem steady. We cling to identity because it promises continuity. And when those stories feel threatened, we look outward for someone to blame.

Othering is not an accident. It’s a psychological survival strategy. A way to redirect fear so we don’t have to feel it directly.

In the Shadow of Sun Mountain grew from that realization. What began as an artistic investigation rooted in land, plants, and material practice expanded into a broader inquiry into how death anxiety shapes behavior, morality, and the human capacity for cruelty. Starting a PhD in my sixties didn’t create this path. It helped me name it. Becker, Rank, and the existentialists gave language to what I had been sensing intuitively for decades: that creativity is not separate from mortality, and that artists often work at the fault line where denial begins to crack.

The chapters that follow trace how fear becomes ideology. How ideology becomes violence. How violence becomes history. And how history becomes a story we repeat so we don’t have to confront what made the violence possible in the first place.

This isn’t a moral lesson. It isn’t a condemnation delivered from a safe distance. It’s an examination of the ordinary human mind and what it does with the knowledge that life is short, unpredictable, and finite. It’s about the psychological architecture we inherit, the beliefs we defend, and the places where those beliefs fail.

Sun Mountain is both literal ground and conceptual ground. The plants, the landscapes, the objects, the materials, and the photographic processes are not illustrations of theory. They are part of the thinking itself. The shadow it casts represents what we push away: the parts of ourselves we disown, project, or punish in others.

If there is any hope here, it’s a quiet one. That facing impermanence might soften the need to harden ourselves against difference. Artists understand that tension intimately. We work every day between creation and loss. We accept what breaks. We learn from what cannot be repaired.

This book is an invitation into that space. It begins with a question and refuses to resolve it too quickly. It follows it through land, material, history, psychology, and lived experience, toward a clearer understanding of what we do in the presence of death, and what might change if we learned to see ourselves more honestly.

References
Becker, E. (1973). The denial of death. Free Press.

Where My Work Is Heading

On Rewriting, Rebuilding, and Turning Toward Mortality

For years now, I’ve been circling the same set of questions, questions that live somewhere between psychology, philosophy, the studio, and the darkroom. Why do humans deny death? What holds our meaning structures together? And why do artists seem to approach these tensions differently than everyone else, often with a kind of clarity that only comes from standing close to fear?

I’ve been asked why In the Shadow of Sun Mountain still isn’t published. The simple truth is that the book outgrew its original frame. I wrote it during a period when I was wrestling with ideas that didn’t yet have the right container. What I couldn’t see then, but can see now, is that the book was waiting for the structure of my doctoral work. It needed a broader foundation, and I needed more time to understand what I was actually trying to say.

So instead of releasing it in its earlier form, I’ve decided to rework it as part of my PhD. It will become the third manuscript in a three-part sequence I’m developing during the program.

The first manuscript will be an explanation of these theories—death anxiety, denial, worldview defense, and the evolutionary roots of awareness—in a way anyone can read and understand. Simple, accessible, and grounded. The working title is Glass Bones.

The second manuscript will be directed toward artists and toward creatives and will explore how they metabolize existential concerns in ways that differ from non-artists. It will look closely at creative practice as a pathway for meaning-making. The working title is Rupture.

And the third will be a rewritten In the Shadow of Sun Mountain, offered as a real-life example of an artist metabolizing these ideas through creative work, reflection, and lived experience.

All of this leads to the question that my dissertation will take up directly:

What actually happens inside an artist when they confront mortality in their creative practice?

To answer that, I’m turning toward arts-based research methodology. ABR is a natural fit for the work I’ve been doing for decades, because in ABR, the studio becomes the site of inquiry. The process becomes a way of knowing. Material becomes a kind of data. Instead of illustrating findings after the fact, the creative act generates them. It’s not about making art that explains theory; it’s about letting the art reveal what theory can’t access on its own.

So the dissertation will center on creating a completely new body of artwork, work made specifically for this research. Clay figures and/or objects suspended or collapsing under their own weight. Wet collodion images that feel like memory rising through fog and confusion. Paintings and photographs that follow the direction of the inquiry. I want the research to grow out of the process itself, out of the contact with clay, with silver, with pigment, with symbol, and with the ambiguous space where meaning forms.

Journal entry - October 2025.

At the same time, I’ll be studying how others respond to this work and what happens psychologically, symbolically, and emotionally when someone encounters artwork that doesn’t look away from mortality. Death denial shows up in recognizable ways: humor, defensiveness, projection, avoidance, and philosophical distancing. But sometimes something deeper appears: recognition, quiet, even a brief moment of meaning.

ABR gives me a structure to study all of this.

My own creative process.

The images that emerge.

The responses they evoke.

The symbolic patterns that repeat.

The ways meaning cracks open or closes down.

It lets me bring the studio, the psyche, and the research questions into one integrated space.

My hope is to create a body of work that matters both inside academia and beyond it. Art isn’t an accessory to life; it’s a method of survival. Artists metabolize things the culture doesn’t know how to hold directly. We take fear, grief, rupture, and turn them into form, into symbols that others can bear to look at. It isn’t therapy and it isn’t escape. It’s a form of existential transformation.

If I can articulate that process, what it feels like, what it reveals, and how it shapes both the maker and the viewer, then the work will have done something meaningful. It will help explain why creative practice is one of the most honest responses we have to our own mortality.

So that’s the direction I’m heading: a reworked Sun Mountain, a sequence of manuscripts that build the conceptual ground, a new exhibition, and a dissertation that uses arts-based research to study the artist’s encounter with mortality from the inside out. I’m building an integrated body of work, creative, philosophical, and experiential, that examines what it means to be mortal and how artists turn that reality into meaning.

More will unfold as the work begins to take shape.

Radical Mindfulness Why Transforming Fear of Death is Politically Vital

This is a book by Dr. James Rowe that I would recommend reading if you want to understand what I’m trying to address through my artwork and my life in general (my interests). He is addressing Ernest Becker’s theories and terror management directly. I’ve never seen anyone write about the results of death anxiety applied to politics and modern and historical problems directly. My book will address these theories in detail, but I’ve made it personal. I’ve explained how the theories have driven me both creatively and psychologically.

Radical Mindfulness examines the root causes of injustice, asking why inequalities along the lines of race, class, gender, and species continue to exist. Specifically, Dr. James K. Rowe examines fear of death as a root cause of systemic inequalities and proposes a more embodied approach to social change as a solution.

Collecting insights from powerful thinkers across multiple traditions—including black radicals, Indigenous resurgence theorists, terror management theorists, and Buddhist feminists—Rowe argues for the political importance of seemingly apolitical practices such as meditation and ritual. These tactics are insufficient on their own, but when included in social movements fighting structural injustices, mind-body practices can start to transform the embodied fears that give supremacist ideologies endless fuel while remaining unaffected by most political actors.

Radical Mindfulness is for academics, activists, and individuals who want to overcome supremacy of all kinds but are struggling to understand and develop methods for attacking it at its roots.

Book Banning (Moral Panic) and Death Anxiety

I’ve been thinking about book banning as it relates to death anxiety and terror management theory. It’s such a perfect example of how our fear of death drives these ideas. I found an interesting article published by psychiatrictimes.com. Here’s the gist of the article.

Human history is replete with instances of book banning and burning. A few examples:

• In 1242, King Louis IX of France (“Saint Louis”) ordered the burning of 24 cartloads of priceless Hebrew manuscripts, including the Talmud, which he regarded as an insult to Christianity.

• In 1497–1498, the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) instigated the infamous “bonfires of the vanities,” which destroyed books and paintings by some of Florence’s greatest artists. Ironically, Savonarola himself, along with all his writings, was burned on the cross in 1498.

• In 1933, a series of massive bonfires in Nazi Germany burned thousands of books written by Jews, communists, and such luminaries as Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Mann.

It appears that the most frequently challenged books tend to have the following themes:

• LGBTQ topics or characters.

• Sex, abortion, teen pregnancy, or puberty.

• Race and racism, or protagonists of color.

• The history of black people.

In their 1994 book, “Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance,” Erich Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda identified five defining elements of “moral panic”:

• A heightened level of concern over the behavior of a so-called “deviant” group and its potential for negative effects on society.

• An increased level of hostility toward the identified “deviants,” who are then designated “the enemy” of respectable society. This leads to the creation of “folk devils.”

• There is a substantial consensus among the accusing segments of society that the “folk devils” represent a real and serious threat to society.

• The perceived harm of the “deviant” group is out of proportion to the objective data, leading to disproportionate reactions by the accusing groups.

• Moral panics are highly volatile and usually tend to disappear quickly as public interest wanes and the media shift to some other narrative.

In short, as Kane and Huang put it: “…moral panic draws up a line between upstanding citizens defending the social order, and the nebulous folk devils who threaten it. The folk devil is exaggerated into an existential threat that, left unchecked, will raze society and completely reshape it in a dystopian mold.”

Sheldon Solomon et al. point out that this kind of panic is directly related to our mortality. It’s a classic case of “in-group” and "out-group"—making the argument for absolute truth for one side. “My worldview” sees the truth clearly, and “yours” doesn’t. This leads to hatred, “othering,” isolation, and even harm or death.

Book banning and many other forms of “you are offending my worldview” are on the rise. We lean so heavily on cultural constructs (in this case, mostly religious beliefs) that these books are “sinful” or wrong and need to be destroyed. These worldviews allow us to buffer our death anxiety. They give us purpose and meaning (even misguided meaning). There is no way to reason with this; the psychology is so strong that we simply have to recognize it and try to help people understand why it’s happening. This is terror management theory, death anxiety, and the denial of death in a nutshell.

“Book Banning Dredges Up Memories of World War II,” 3.75” x 5” acrylic, charcoal, newsprint (mixed media) on paper.

Existential Dread No. 8

“Existential Dread No. 8,” 8” x 10” acrylic and charcoal on paper.

“Existential Dread No. 8,” 8” x 10” acrylic and charcoal on paper.

“Existential Dread No. 8,” 8” x 10” acrylic and charcoal on paper.

Existential Dread No. 5

There is something that I find both intriguing and fascinating about non-objective abstracts. Yesterday, I posted my representational abstract, “The Ballad of Curtis Loew,” based on a song and memory. This is a painting I did today based on an idea from within me—nothing representational or based on anything physical, at least when I started the painting. I’ll let the viewer decide what they see or feel in reference to the title. I have to say, I do love the underpainting on this. It gives the piece a lot of depth. It looks really nice in real life.

In the context of evolution, human existential crises may arise from our heightened cognitive abilities and self-awareness. As humans developed intricate thinking processes and self-reflective capacities, an increased awareness of mortality, the quest for meaning, and contemplation of one's existence became more pronounced. While an existential crisis isn't necessarily a flaw, it can be viewed as a consequence of our advanced cognitive functions. It might function as a mechanism for individuals to scrutinize and assess their position in the world, fostering personal growth and the formulation of coping strategies. In this regard, it can be perceived as a beneficial function that motivates individuals to explore purpose and meaning in their lives.

Ernest Becker said, “What does it mean to be a self-conscious animal? The idea is ludicrous if it is not monstrous. It means to know that one is food for worms. This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, a consciousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression, and with all this yet to die. It seems like a hoax, which is why one type of cultural man rebels openly against the idea of God. What kind of deity would crate such complex and fancy worm food?” (The Denial of Death)

Is it Something or About Something?

“Fish Bones No. 1,” 6” x 6” (15 x 15 cm) Oil

Is it something, about something, or both? I’ve been trying to get my arms around avoiding the literal. It’s a difficult habit to break. Coming from photography, where everything is literal (even if it’s abstract), painting offers you a lot of freedom. Sometimes, that freedom causes you to freeze—it creates a barrier to making work that is less literal.

I have so many ideas that I want to paint; I’m just trying to find my way in with a blend of styles—impressionism and post-impressionism. Those are the movements that are most attractive to me. I would add some abstract impressionism in there too. These paintings I’m making will always be centered on Becker’s theories and terror management theory, but in a very non-literal way. Sometimes the content will be non-literal, and sometimes the ideas will be less than literal. It’s more of a personal journey than any kind of commercial process.

I said in my last post that I’m reading Rick Rubin every morning—early in the morning—and he’s been driving me to new places and trying new things. It’s liberating. He said, “Look for what you notice but no one else sees.” (Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being) That resonates with me deeply. I would say that is the core of my work (In the Shadow of Sun Mountain). I’m not sure that no one else notices, but the idea is to get away from the obvious, the literal, and the commonplace. I get it, and I agree.

“In terms of priority, inspiration comes first. You come next. The audience comes last.”

— (Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

As I find my way through this iteration of the project, I do find my biggest obstacle to be literalism. I’m working to break the chains of photography and literalism and find my way to most representational work, even abstract in some sense. It’s a fun journey, and I encourage you to remember that you’re the creator of your work; you’re the one that needs to be happy with it. Another Rubin quote from his book is, “In terms of priority, inspiration comes first. You come next. The audience comes last.“ (Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being).

“Existential Dread No. 5,” 6” x 6” (15 x 15cm) Oil

Monotype Prints Made With Blocking Ink

I’ve been experimenting with monotype prints for a while and am really enjoying the process. Sometimes, I print and then paint them after the blocking ink is dry. I use both watercolor and acrylic paint. I’ll show an example of one of those “post color” monotype prints later.

I’m exploring the same themes and ideas with these. I like the figures I’ve created and will continue to make prints as the inspiration hits me.

“The Alien and Two Graves” monotype print, 9” x 12” (22,86 x 30,48cm) November 23, 2023.

Something New: Mixed Media; Photography, Painting, and Sculpting

A while ago, I decided I needed to take this work to the next level. I needed to address questions surrounding something “missing” in the work. I wrote an essay a few weeks ago about searching for words like “tactile” and “tangible,” as well as enhancing color—all in the service of decay and impermanence. I wanted to engage the work in an interdisciplinary way—deeper and more involved than simply looking at a photograph. I want to create something that asks to be touched and experienced beyond photography. My goal is to transcend photography and create a “living” piece of art that represents this land, the people that were here, and the theories I’m addressing surrounding all of it.

Colors and Textures: I’ve mimicked the colors of fall as well as the colors found in the antlers. The surface of the canvas is a reminder (in the shapes) of the antlers as well as roots or veins reaching into the earth. The colors and textures in this piece worked very well together. It is tactile, physical, and contains real objects from the land. The antlers on the canvas are the antlers (some of them) in the photograph. It’s also a reference to the Ute’s skillful tanning of buckskin (deer hides). They were known for the quality and beauty of the leather they made.

Canvas Choice (18” x 18" - 45,75 x 45,75cm): It’s simple; the canvas represents the shape of the state of Colorado. I did the same thing when I made the Ghost Dance work: 6” x 6” wet collodion negatives and prints. I just carried that concept over to this project.

Fibonacci Sequences: Living on this mountain for the past three years, I’ve become closer to nature. I go to bed when the sun sets, and I get up when it rises. I’m aware of the seasons like never before. I see plants and animals in all stages of their lives. The flow and balance of nature are both awe-inspiring and beautiful. I’m beyond grateful to have experienced this. I’ve spent a lot of time photographing flora. I can see the patterns and the consistency in them. I studied the Fibonacci sequence and became very interested in it. I’ve posted about it before. I’ve designed these mixed media pieces based on the Goldaen Ratio and Fibonacci sequences. This is the only time I’m going to point out the details in a piece. The photograph has 10 antler tips and 3 bases—that’s 13. The antlers and antler buttons surrounding the image represent the number 8. The layout is on the Golden Ratio grid. You get it.

Symbolism of Circles: The Tabeguache Ute always set up a medicine wheel, or the circle of life, at each camp when they traveled in the spring and fall. For them, it represents the continuous pattern of life and death, the paths of the sun and moon, as well as the shape of the earth and moon, among many other things. I’ve used the idea of circles as a way to recognize that and to give a sense of peering into something eternal yet impermanent—a visual paradox. The Circle of Life is a central theme of Ute life. The Ute people have a unique relationship with the land, plants, and all things living. The Circle of Life represents the unique relationship in its shape, colors, and reference to the number four, which represents ideas and qualities for the existence of life.

I found this in a presentation to Colorado 4th graders. The People of the early Ute Tribes lived a life in harmony with nature, each other, and all of life. The Circle of Life symbolizes all aspects of life. The Circle represents the Cycle of Life from birth to death for people, animals, all creatures, and plants. The early Tabegucahe Utes understood this cycle. They saw its reflection in all things. This brought them great wisdom and comfort. The Eagle is the spiritual guide of the People and of all things. Traditionally, the Eagle appears in the middle of the Circle.

The Circle is divided into four sections. In the Circle of Life, each section represents a season: spring is red, summer is yellow, fall is white, and winter is black. The Circle of Life joins together the seasonal cycles and the life cycles. Spring represents Infancy, a time of birth and newness—the time of “Spring Moon, Bear Goes Out.” Summer is Youth. This is a time of curiosity, dancing, and singing. Fall represents Adulthood, the time of manhood and womanhood. This is the time of harvesting and of change: “When Trees Turn Yellow” and “Falling Leaf Time.” Winter begins with gaining wisdom and knowledge about “Cold Weather Here.” Winter represents old age, a time to prepare for passing into the spirit world.

The Circle also symbolizes the annual journey of the People. On this journey, the People moved from their winter camp to the mountains in the spring. They followed trails known to each family group for generations. The People journeyed to each family group for generations. The People journeyed as the animals did. Following the snowmelt, they traveled up to their summer camps. In the fall, as the weather changed, the People began their journey back to their winter camps. Once again, they followed the animal migrations into lower elevations. They camped near streams, rivers, springs, and lakes. These regions provided winter shelter and warmth.

The early People carried with them an intricate knowledge of nature. They understood how to receive the rich and abundant gifts that the Earth, Sky, and Spirit provided. They also understood how to sustain these gifts. They took only what was needed. The People used the plants, animals, and earth wisely. They gave gifts in return. This knowledge was the People’s wealth.

The Circle of Life is the rich cultural and spiritual heritage of the Tabegucahe Ute. This heritage is still alive in the life cycle and seasonal cycles of today. It still is alive within the harmony of nature. It is reflected in the acknowledgement and practice of honoring and respecting all things, people, and relationships. The Circle design can be found on the back of traditionally made hand drums. These drums are important ceremonial instruments for the People today.

The idea of impermanence and decay plays a big role in my approach to this work. I've tried to develop a deeper appreciation of impermanence, specifically of my own impermanence. It’s important for me to try to make the viewer aware of their mortality through these pieces and the theories they’re based on. Everything I’ve made images of is either dead or changing in some way (entropy). The way I’m building these pieces up—the textures and colors—refers to the idea of both death and decay (impermanence) and life and living. An elevated sense of gratitude for every fleeting moment of life is very important to have. It fosters a significant recognition of the invaluable essence of human existence by observing the natural endings in everyday life, like leaves falling from trees or the decay of organic matter. This helps people connect with the concepts of impermanence and death on a smaller scale. That’s the big connection between my work and these theories.

I find myself contemplating compassion more while doing this work. Thinking about my own struggles with difference. I suppose the wonderful thing about learning about these theories (death anxiety and terror management theory) is that you have a lot of time to think about, or even meditate about, your own death and the deaths of loved ones. In turn, that allows you to come to terms, in some ways, with all of it. Moreover, I’ve found I have a heightened zest for life. A greater appreciation for the cycle of life, or, as the Tabeguache Ute would call it, the Circle of Life.

Currently working on monotypes: I’ve been working with acrylic paint and doing monotypes. I really like them; they have a lot of potential for this project. As time goes on, I’ll post some occasionally. I just wanted to share this mixed media idea I had and my thinking around it.

Updates and News

Greetings. I have been “absent” online for the past couple of months for a variety of reasons. I wanted to post an update and share some news and let you know what’s happened.

First, I want to thank the people who have reached out to me by phone, text, email, or message. I appreciate that. Very kind. All is well; I’ve just had some events and a change of mind in how I want to communicate, or not, about my life and goings on.

DEATHS IN MY FAMILY
In August, my brother died from drugs. He was only 61 years old, but he had a long history of drug abuse and a troubled life, to say the least. It was shocking to hear the news, but not surprising in a lot of ways. Thirty days later, my father died of cancer. He’d been in hospice care for over a year and was quite ill. His death wasn’t as shocking but still a loss. They both died at home. So I’ve been taking care of all of that for the past 6–8 weeks, and it’s still going on, but I can see the end and closure at this point.

“On the Edge of a Precipice,” 9” x 12” (22,86cm x 30,48cm) Acrylic Painting, September 4, 2023

For the past five years, my studies in death anxiety, the denial of death, and terror management theory have really helped me process all of this. I don’t look at death the same way I once did. Yes, it’s sad; it's a loss, but coming to terms with the inevitable is reassuring and comforting. The Buddhists talk about attachment as suffering. I can see that; I understand the reasoning. Everything and everyone you know will be gone one day. All living things will die. Few think about it in those terms. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have attachments; we all do, but maybe think about the impermanence of everything. Try to see connectedness in a different way. I take great comfort in thinking about my “cosmic insignificance.” It puts my ego in check and helps me maintain psychological equanimity. I see so many people “inflated” about who they are or their "achievements,” and all I can think of is how misguided and diluted they are. I don’t want to use the word narcissist, but it’s very close to that. I understand why they do it; I understand Becker’s work and Solomon’s too.

The lack of self-awareness and self-refection is obvious. If there is one thing I would say to people like that, it is: “You have to come to terms with the fact that no one cares about what you do. No one.” The sooner you realize this, the sooner you can get on with really living life. It’s important for us to feel like we have value in a meaningful world. I don’t think that approach is the most healthy. If you’re an artist, make the work because you’re compelled or driven, not because you get “likes” or money from it. Think in terms of meaning and value. Try to see the world in a less self-centered way—less navel gazing and more cosmic insignificance! That’s been my goal for a while.

SOCIAL MEDIA
I’ve found myself more and more turned off by all of it. I’ve lost interest in it, to be honest. A few months ago, I started painting and doing some mixed media work for my book and didn’t want to share any of it on social media. We share too much. It’s overkill. I find myself disinterested in what people are doing because so many of them are doing the same thing. And everything seems to have a commercial objective to it—all about the money—very little about creativity or expression. I have no interest in commercial work. I know people have to make a living, or try, so I get that, but capitalism and creativity are like oil and water to me. So, I’ve stepped back from posting or interacting that way. Rick Rubin said in his book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, “As artists, we seek to restore our childlike perception: a more innocent state of wonder and appreciation not tethered to utility or survival.“ That’s exactly how I feel about it. The caveat is that I will post some blog links on Instagram, but that’s about it.

“On the Edge of a Precipice #2,” 9” x 12” (22,86cm x 30,48cm) Acrylic Painting, September 19, 2023

I’ll continue to post here; as I move through my project, I’ll share some things, ideas, and progress. I will save a lot for the book. I like the idea of the book containing images and ideas that are only published there, not online. Currently, I’m still writing, editing, and making work. As I said, I’ve been doing some painting and mixed-media work. I’m allowing this to unfold however it wants. Another thing about working in solitude (not sharing everything) is that the external becomes silent and the internal can come forward. It’s powerful. I think technology has taken us captive (social media) and made us slaves to sharing everything we do, allowing the influence of strangers to guide and influence our work in a negative, non-personal way. That’s not a good thing. Again, Rick Rubin sums it up well. He said, “Art is choosing to do something skillfully, caring about the details, and bringing all of yourself to make the finest work you can. It is beyond ego, vanity, self-glorification, and the need for approval.” (The Creative Act: A Way of Being)

MAKING A MOVE
And last, but certainly not least, we’re thinking about relocating. We love it here, but as we get a bit older each year, we become more and more sensitive to the snow and cold. We want to live somewhere warm most of the year. Right now, we’re looking at Las Cruces, New Mexico. There are several reasons for this, but the main one is weather. Also, I want to be able to make art year-round; the weather plays a big part in that as well. We’re not sure when this will happen. Right now, the housing market is in trouble. We’re fine here; it's not a big deal if it takes some time. So, if you’re in the market for 12 acres of land and a new home in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, drop me a note (insert winky face here).

I hope you’re healthy and happy and find your center in this turbulent, chaotic world we live in. I wish you gratitude, awe, and humility in your daily life. Check back once in a while and you can see what I’m up to, and don’t be afraid to drop me a comment or an email-it’s always good to hear from my friends!