The Studio Q Show LIVE! September 21, 2024 at 1000 MST

Greetings! 
I hope you can join me on Saturday for a conversation about war and violence in our culture. This is episode six of Conversations with Solomon. 

Some questions to ponder after watching the video:

What aspects of the video did you find the most engaging or thought-provoking?

Do you believe that war and violence are inevitable aspects of human existence?

If you agree, what reasons support this belief?

How might the themes of violence and war in our culture be expressed or transformed into artistic creations?

Can you give any examples of artists using war and violence as a topic in their art?

I wanted to have this conversation a couple of weeks ago. It's so timely; I think we should look at the idea of war and violence as a jumping-off point for creating art. This is a topic that hits close to home for me. For those that have served in the military, these ideas can alleviate some of the trauma and stress from serving. I'll share some personal insight (my military time) and how Becker had a similar experience in the Army after WW2 liberating the death camps of Europe. Ernest Becker served in the infantry as well.

If you can, spend some time with this; take some notes and wrestle with the questions I asked (above) or your own. It's 40 minutes long, but worth every minute. 

Conversations With Solomon: War and Violence

The links to the show on Saturday:

Stream Yard: https://streamyard.com/tvn88jifd2

You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/live/AG2mKG-VrP0?si=Rar2IUvz-shViVLW

I hope you have a wonderful week, and I hope to see you Saturday! 

The Studio Q Show LIVE! September 4, 2024 at 1700 MST

Join Quinn on Wednesday evening (September 4, 2024, at 1700 MST) for a talk with Dr. Sheldon Solomon, author of The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life. Quinn and Sheldon will talk about how artists differ in their response to death anxiety. What can an artist do to harness this powerful psychological phenomenon? Can the knowledge of our impending deaths make us more creative?

The Studio Q Show LIVE! July 13, 2024 at 1000 MST

I’m back! Join me July 13, 2024, at 1000 MST! Links below!

The Stream Yard link will allow you to join the room on the live show. The YouTube link will allow you to view and send messages on the chat board. You can go to the YouTube link now and click on the bell, which will send you a reminder.

Stream Yard: https://streamyard.com/t5r53p8qtw

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/OPfZS-a50Jw?si=UPm9YE-P4fRR7fDu

If you have any questions, feel free to drop me an email! 

Agreed Madness

It’s our “one month” anniversary today. We’ve been in New Mexico for 30 days, and man, time has whizzed by!!

Between unpacking boxes and running household errands, I’ve been slowly getting back on track to work on my book. I get excited about the thought of actually completing this work. It’s no longer a hope or dream; it’s close to becoming a reality.

“Man literally drives himself into a blind obliviousness with social games, psychological tricks, and personal preoccupations so far removed from the reality of his situation that they are forms of madness—agreed madness, shared madness, disguised and dignified madness, but madness all the same.”

— Ernest Becker, Denial of Death

These theories seem simple on the surface, but it takes some deep thinking and evaluation to really understand them and, moreover, to apply them to your life. My hope is that by sharing these ideas and concepts in a book, it will inspire people (especially artists) to engage with these theories and start to share them through their art.

I wrote a while ago about someone asking me if there was a movement in art around “death anxiety.” In other words, Becker’s and Solomon's (et al.) theories could form an entire art movement based on the theories dealing with death anxiety and terror management. This is what happened in existential psychology. There are people working on PhDs in terror management theory and have been for years; why not art? Not unlike impressionism, cubism, dada, etc.

In a lot of ways, all art does address these ideas, but rarely intentionally or consciously. It’s food for thought and a wonderful way to get people to engage with these ideas.

Importance of Creativity

"Both the artist and the neurotic bite off more than they can chew, but the artist spews it back out again and chews it over in an objectified way, as an external, active, work project. The neurotic can’t marshal this creative response embodied in a specific work, and so he chokes on his introversions.

The only way to work on perfection is in the form of an objective work that is fully under your control and is perfectible in some real ways. Either you eat up yourself and others around you, trying for perfection; or you objectify that imperfection in a work, on which you then unleash your creative powers. In this sense, some kind of objective creativity is the only answer man has to the problem of life.

The creative person becomes, in art, literature, and religion, the mediator of natural terror and the indicator of a new way to triumph over it. He reveals the darkness and the dread of the human condition and fabricates a new symbolic transcendence over it. This has been the function of the creative deviant from the shamans through Shakespeare.

Otto Rank asked why the artist so often avoids clinical neurosis when he is so much a candidate for it because of his vivid imagination, his openness to the finest and broadest aspects of experience, and his isolation from the cultural world-view that satisfies everyone else. The answer is that he takes in the world, but instead of being oppressed by it, he reworks it in his own personality and recreates it in the work of art. The neurotic is precisely the one who cannot create." Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

Jesus Was a Capricorn

I was doing some research on Becker’s theories appearing in art—all kinds of art—and I ran across this. I was listening to a podcast when I heard the host talking about the song “Jesus Was a Capricorn.” I’d never heard of it or read about it. It was Kris Kristofferson’s 1972 song.

It sits at the heart of Ernest Becker’s theories about “othering.” Having an in-house designated inferior, as Sheldon Solomon would say. In The Denial of Death, author Ernest Becker states, "The essence of man is really his paradoxical nature, the fact that he is half animal and half symbolic." Psychologically, we try to deny our animality and live through symbolism and meaning. It's the animal part that gives us problems. It reminds us that we are going to die. In seeking meaning and importance for ourselves, we deny it to others, and especially to those “others” who threaten our truth. In the end, we all have the same goal: to raise men above nature, to assure them that in some ways their lives count in the universe more than merely physical things count” (Ernest Becker).

“In The Denial of Death, author Ernest Becker states, “The essence of man is really his paradoxical nature, the fact that he is half animal and half symbolic.” Psychologically, we try to deny our animality and live through symbolism and meaning. It’s the animal part that gives us problems. It reminds us that we are going to die.”

Here are the lyrics:

[Verse 1]

Jesus was a Capricorn, he ate organic foods

He believed in love and peace and never wore no shoes

Long hair, beard and sandles and a funky bunch of friends

Reckon they'd just nail him up, if he come down again

[Chorus]

'Cause everybody's gotta have somebody to look down on

Prove they can feel better than at any time they please

Someone doin' somethin' dirty decent folks can frown on

If you can't find nobody else, then help yourself to me

[Verse 2]

Eggheads cussin', rednecks cussin' hippies for their hair

Others laugh at straights who laugh at freaks who laugh at squares

Some folks hate the Whites who hate the Blacks who hate the Klan

Most of us hate anything we don't understand

[Chorus]

'Cause everybody's gotta have somebody to look down on

Prove they can feel better than at any time they please

Someone doin' somethin' dirty decent folks can frown on

If you can't find nobody else, then help yourself to me

[Outro]

Help yourself right on

Help yourself, Jim

Help yourself, Reverend

“Flowering Yarrow and Granite Stone,” 10” x 10” (25,4 x 25,4cm) RA-4 Reversal Direct Color Print July 17, 2023

The Influence of Color

“in·flu·ence (noun) the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself.”

— Oxford Dictionary

I love paintings. I always have. I’ve said many times that I’m a "frustrated painter." I’ve always said that one day I'd learn to paint. That may still happen. For now, I’m exploring the emotional influence that color prints bring to my photographic work (In the Shadow of Sun Mountain). The "vibration" of color, to use Marc Chagall's term, influences and moves me more as I produce more prints. I see it and, moreover, I feel it.

As I work through my ideas, I find what I’m attracted to is the "life vibrations," or the depth of life, that the colors bring to the subject matter. In other words, there is a poetry or feeling that they give where the monochrome fails. As an artist, you’re always searching for the right tool to use to make your work successful. The color prints are the correct tool for this work. I’m convinced.

“Cactus People With Water Vessel” May 14, 2023, 10” x 10” (25,4 x 25.4 cm) (Made in camera, no negative) RA-4 Reversal Color Direct Print I used my Derogy (1864) Petzval lens for this image. The beautiful fall-off, or depth of field, is like a half-remembered dream.

Working in the RA-4 reversal process has given me a lot of new ways to approach making photographs, too. The paper is quite “fast” (ISO)—I rate it at ISO 6 or 8 with the filter pack I’m using. That means I can work at times of the day and early evening that I was never able to with wet or dry collodion, let alone paper negatives. Also, I can “stop down” my lenses to gain depth of field and still manage to make exposures in seconds, not minutes. This opens an entirely new world for me. That’s very exciting, and I’m looking forward to the summer here and making this work come alive!

I see how this project has evolved over the two years I’ve been working on it. And I hope it will continue to evolve. I stay open and aware of that. For me, it has two layers: the personal exploration of our denial of death and terror management theory. This is the foundation for telling the story of the Tabeguache Ute, what happened to them here, and, more importantly, why it happened.

The second layer is more abstract, concerning poetry, beauty, and the life-affirming examination of mortality. For me, this is the perfect narrative. I have “skin in the game," given my preoccupation with marginal communities and the psychology that drives human behavior. And I have a love of the mystery of life and how beautiful it can be. My objectives have nothing to do with “self-help” or offering to analyze people’s lives through these psychological theories. It’s more about sharing my self-awareness and what that means for me. Also, there is a big part of it that is based on how these theories have driven human behavior and historical events. In the end, it’s both historical and personal, terrifying and beautiful. I feel like the color component helps me translate these kinds of concepts better than monochrome work. It elevates both the work and the concepts.

“Awe, humility and gratitude effectively mitigate death anxiety.”

— Sheldon Solomon

Color is now a primary tool for me to communicate the nuances and beauty of the place where I live. Through the color, I can talk about the history and events that took place here with a subtlety that I didn’t possess before. I know now that I’ll start (and have already started) incorporating visual ideas that represent the concepts of consciousness, death anxiety, awe, humility, and gratitude. I want to show how facing the existential anxieties that we all have can be resolved (or at least managed) through deeply reflecting on yourself, having true self-awareness, and being authentic.

Life is both beautiful and terrifying—that’s the paradox we face. Choosing to be death-forward (in the words of Heidegger) and working toward that horizon of opportunity to have a “turning” in your life is the goal. We will never be free from death anxiety. It will always be there. We can, however, learn to be in awe, be humble (not self-deprecating but understanding your position in the universe), and most of all, be grateful and have gratitude for life. It will end, no doubt, but we can strive toward being thoughtful, self-aware, open, and honest every day. Like Socrates said, examine yourself, be honest, and move toward the good.

“The bottom line is this: Terror Management Theory may seem like a dark and depressing topic, but it can actually shed a lot of light on the ways that we as humans strive to find meaning and purpose in a world that can sometimes seem bleak and meaningless. By understanding the ways that we cope with our mortality, we can begin to develop more positive and life-affirming strategies for dealing with the existential terror that is an inevitable part of the human experience.”

— Mark Manson

“Cactus People With Water Vessel” May 14, 2023, 10” x 10” (25,4 x 25.4 cm) (Made in camera, no negative) RA-4 Reversal Color Direct Print I used my Derogy (1864) Petzval lens for this image. I’ve made hundreds of portraits with this lens. I can control color with exposure—the length of exposure will warm or cool the image color. Absolutely amazing!

Understanding the Relationship Between Words and Pictures

There are some people who believe you don’t need any words or explanations (context) with art. Period. I understand that, at least to a certain extent. However, that statement lacks context, to put it mildly. It’s too broad of a statement to include all art.

I would argue that it depends on your goal and who your audience is, or who you want to see the work and who speaks your language (creative language). If you want to make pictures and say nothing, simply post them, publish them, or exhibit them, you can. You’re allowing the audience to interpret or create a narrative for the work. Remember, text taken out of context is pretext. In other words, people will make up context for your work or ignore it completely. Imagine trying to read a book or watch a movie with no plot, no beginning, middle, or end. No story. In my opinion, few people would be interested in that kind of material unless it was connected to a larger concept in some meaningful way.

I believe all artists (and humans in general) are storytellers at their core. We create stories, or illusions, to explain our lives, to make sense of them, and primarily to repress our existential dread. We need to tell stories; they make us human (Homo sapiens). Artists are acutely aware of this need. They pursue it with purpose and meaning, trying to squeeze everything out of life that they can. Expressing their greatest fears, their biggest questions, and their greatest joy and love of beauty.

“An Eruption from Quartz-Detail,” May 10, 2023, 10” x 10” (25,4 x 25.4 cm) (Made in camera, no negative) RA-4 Reversal Color Direct Print. I’m using 19th-century Petzval lenses to make these images. Thinking about death evokes a flood of dread and terror for most people. Death awareness seems antithetical to our existence. Humans have evolved psychologically to repress death awareness and embrace their cultural illusions.

There is no “rule” or set way to tell a story. You can drizzle and drip paint on a canvas, or even paint a canvas black or white and reveal or tell a story. You can make abstract, blurry pictures or shape clay into some abstract form. It’s about context. It comes down to your narrative and your audience. All art is not for everyone—it’s never “one size fits all.” It’s a language as unique as spoken and written languages. If your “art” is appealing to the masses, it’s probably some form of “commercial art” consumable by most everyone. This essay is about personal, fine art work.

The artist has a specific audience that will understand and appreciate the art. Some audiences understand and appreciate documentary work. This is probably more of a stretch than most would make, but I think of Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Mary Ellen Mark, and many more who worked in the blurry (no pun) area between art and documentary work. No one, at least I think no one, would argue their pictures are art; they tell a story and are powerful pieces of work. And then there are artists like Jackson Pollock or Mark Rothko who demand more interpretation and investigation. Pollock’s work is about the paint itself and his movement. We’re used to seeing paint represent something, but Pollock challenges us with his work. Rothko believed that his paintings could communicate a spiritual or emotional experience to the viewer, and he often titled his works with evocative, poetic titles that suggested a deeper meaning beyond the surface of the canvas. Many of his paintings are untitled, however, leaving the interpretation up to the viewer. His paintings are a powerful exploration of color, form, and emotion, and they continue to captivate and inspire viewers today. These artists are on the other end of the spectrum of what I’m talking about, but they still adhere to my thesis. Most people won’t spend time with work like theirs; it’s too abstract, and the viewer feels they have no context for the work, which is true. In reality, the viewer isn’t equipped to appreciate or understand the work. Part of it is interest in the work, and the other part is education. Learning their language so you can appreciate their work is a big part of it. Like I said, art consists of as many languages as there are artists. Not everyone speaks that many languages.

“Fireworks in Red and Yellow,” May 10, 2023, 10” x 10” (25,4 x 25.4 cm) (Made in camera, no negative) RA-4 Reversal Color Direct Print. I’m using 19th-century Petzval lenses to make these images. Awareness of death has such a pervasive influence on our lives. Most people rarely think about their deaths. They embrace their culture, bolster their self-esteem, and numb themselves to life’s reality: death.

Death Near and Far

"The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life"

Chapter 9: Death Near and Far

• Death: Out of Sight, Out of Mind?

• The Power of the Unconscious

• Death Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

This is a reading of the book "The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life" by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski. Quinn reads a chapter every week and then has a discussion about it. This book, along with "The Denial of Death" by Ernest Becker, is the basis for Quinn's (photographic) book, "In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of Othering and the Genesis of Evil."

When: Saturday, May 13, 2023, at 1000 MST

Where: My YouTube channel and Stream Yard

YouTube: https://youtube.com/live/OIiP8PxUqQ8

Stream Yard: https://streamyard.com/sj22vz87ji

#intheshadowofsunmountain #ernestbecker #deathanxiety #denialofdeath #sheldonsolomon #jeffgreenberg #tompyszcynski #terrormanagementtheory #thewormatthecore #quinnjacobson #studioQ #chemicalpictures #proximalanddistaldefenses #ra4reversal

Body and Soul: An Uneasy Alliance

“The body is the closest that we come to touching any kind of reality. And yet we have the desire to flee the body: many religions are based entirely on disembodiment, because the body brings with it mortality, fear of death. If you accept the body as reality, then you have to accept mortality and people are very afraid to do that.”

— David Cronenberg

“Body and Soul: An Uneasy Alliance” is chapter 8 from “The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life,” by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski (co-creators of terror management theory).

If you join me on Saturdays (on my YouTube channel), you’ll know that we’re going through this wonderful book and learning a tremendous amount about how knowledge of our impending deaths drives so much of our behavior, good and bad. I’m posting this as a follow-up to the reading and for those who have watched or listened to the video.

Sub-Chapters and Notes

DISTANCING FROM AND DISPARAGING ANIMALS

• We regulate activities that remind us of our corporeal nature.

• We alter and adorn our bodies.

• We scrub ourselves to eradicate any scents except those that come from bottles or spray cans.

• We use “rest” rooms to discretely dispose of bodily excretions.

• We recoil in sophomoric mirth (amusement) at the sight of animals copulating.

• Disgust: We are “disgusted” by far more than rotting flesh.

• Bodily secretions like blood, vomit, urine, and feces are more disgusting after thinking about death.

• We are determined to deny our animality. We want to separate ourselves from animals; we want to be special and superior to the “lowly” animals. Animals remind us that we will die. We hide all of our animal behavior; we have toilets, plates, forks, spoons, and cups; we shave, we wear clothes, and we disguise sex as “love.”

THE MORTIFICATION OF THE FLESH

• We believe we are superior to all other life forms (Bible, created in the image of God, etc.).

• Scourging purifications. Whipping the flesh, conquering the flesh—Saint Paul, “Live by the flesh, you will die, put the deeds of the body to death, and you will live.”

FOR BEAUTY, WE MUST SUFFER

• We decorate our flesh with ink, piercings, scarring, etc.

• We distinguish between the world of culture and the world of nature (man vs. animal).

• We have a need to reduce our resemblance to animals; animals remind us of death.

• Eating from the Tree of Knowledge made the naked human body shameful; it revealed the “worm at the core." - death

• We go to great lengths not to look old—cosmetics, surgery, etc.

• Hair: Hairy bodies have always been associated with uncivilized, amoral, sexually promiscuous, and perverted animality.

• Transforming from animal to human through modifications—piercings, tattoos, and scarification—reinforces that we are more than mere animals.

• Neck rings, feet, waist, and head binding permanently disable people for “beauty” and “status.”

• Millions of Americans get plastic surgery every year; the need for a “youthful appearance” is paramount!

“SEX AND DEATH ARE TWINS”

• Sex is both exhilarating and frightening to us.

• Ernest Becker said, “Sex is of the body, and the body is of death.”

• Sex is a potent symbol of our creaturely, corporeal, and ephemeral conditions.

• Sex is first and foremost a glaring reminder that we are animals; next to urination and defecation, it is the closest human beings come to acting like beasts.

• We recognize that animals and humans have sex in the same way.
  Reproduction makes us painfully aware that we are transient ambulatory gene repositories (pass it on and die).

• Ernest Becker was right then when he proclaimed that “sex and death are twins." Thinking about death makes the physical aspects of sex unappealing, and considering the physical aspects of sex nudges death thoughts closer to consciousness.

• We manage our death-fueled anxiety about sex by imbuing it with symbolic meaning, transforming it from the creaturely to the sublime, thereby making it psychologically safer.

• We transform sex into a cultural ritual, making it less animalistic.

• Animal lust becomes human love.

LA FEMME FATALE

• Women’s bodies and sexual behavior are especially subject to rules and regulations.

• Men have always made the rules, and women arouse sexual lust in them.

• Disgust with menstruation and lactation: a lab study

• From time immemorial, men have utilized their superior physical strength, political power, and economic clout to dominate, denigrate, and control women, as well as using women to serve as designated inferiors in order to prop up their self-esteem.

• Women make men hard, and this makes it hard for men to ignore their own animality.

• The reason so many men are misogynistic is because they are reminded of sex when encountering women, they are threatened by this.

• Men are reminded of their animality through the sexual arousal of women and are reminded of their impending death.

• Many major religions belittle women, making them subject to men.

• Widespread patterns of violence against women may well be partially rooted in men’s sexual ambivalence; the conflict between lust and the need to deny animality makes men uncomfortable with their own sexual arousal.

• Being an embodied animal aware of death is indeed difficult. We simply cannot bear the thought that we are biological creatures, no different from dogs, cats, fish, or worms. Accordingly, people are generally partial to views of humans as different from and superior to animals. We adorn and modify our bodies, transforming our animal carcasses into cultural symbols. Rather than thinking of ourselves as hormonally regulated gene reproduction machines bumping and grinding our way toward oblivion, we “make love” to transform copulation into romance. And when women ooze hormones, blood, and babies, men blame them for their own lustful urges, which serves to perpetuate negative stereotypes about and justify abuse of women.

• The terror of death is thus at the heart of human estrangement from our animal nature. It isolates us from our own bodies, from each other, and from the other creatures with whom we share noses, lips, eyes, teeth, and limbs everywhere on the planet.

“Humans cannot live without illusions. For the men and women of today, an irrational faith in progress may be the only antidote to nihilism. Without the hope that the future will be better than the past, they could not go on...
Humanists like to think they have a rational view of the world; but their core belief in progress is a superstition, further from the truth about the human animal than any of the world’s religions. Outside of science, progress is simply a myth.”

— John Gray

The Worm at the Core: Chapter 5: Literal Immortality

Join me next Saturday, April 15, 2023 at 1000 MST for the fifth chapter of The Worm at the Core!

Chapter 5: Literal Immortality

This is a reading of the book, "The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life" by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski. Quinn will read a chapter every week and then have a discussion about it. This book, along with "The Denial of Death" by Ernest Becker is the basis for Quinn's (photographic) book, "In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of Othering and the Genesis of Evil."

Saturday, April 15, 2023 at 1000 MST on my YouTube channel and Stream Yard.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/4jcJ5e8_Bps

Stream Yard: https://streamyard.com/gvj7bnmwdh