Between Being and Ending: The Existential Significance of Art in a Finite Life

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what I'm taking on with the PhD work I'll soon be embarking on. I've been trying to build ideas around what I'm preoccupied with and the best ways to articulate it. Titles and the ideas that come from them seem to help me a lot. Here's a short one I just completed.

This title really captures something essential about my inquiry. What does it mean to create while knowing we will die? Why do I pick up a brush, knowing both I and the painting will eventually disappear?

The phrase "Between Being and Ending" places my artistic practice in that strange, tense space between existence and nonexistence. As an artist, I live in this in-between consciously—I'm painfully aware of my temporary nature while simultaneously working against it. This "betweenness" isn't just some abstract concept but something I feel physically in my studio, in my body, in those moments when creation happens. I want my research to dig into this lived experience of making art while death-aware.

I'm drawn to existentialism because thinkers like Heidegger talked about "being-toward-death" as the most authentic way to exist, and Camus somehow found meaning despite the absurdity of it all. I think art-making isn't just a psychological defense against death anxiety (though Ernest Becker would say it is) but a fundamental way of building meaning in an existence that doesn't come with meaning built-in.

What fascinates me is whether we artists face mortality differently. Does the act of creation offer us a particular kind of existential authenticity that might not be as available to non-artists? Looking at how artists throughout history have positioned themselves in this tension between being and ending—from memento mori paintings to Rothko's void-like color fields—there seems to be something unique happening.

“My purpose is to use art as a mirror—confronting mortality, memory, and denial—to reveal what we’d rather not see and to ask what we might create from that truth.

I see my calling as this: to bring death back into the room—not for shock, but for clarity. Through art, writing, and dialogue, I work to transform death anxiety into something conscious, creative, and potentially redemptive.”

— Quinn Jacobson

Of course, my own artistic practice becomes a case study in all this. How does my awareness that I'll die shape what and how I create? How does my art simultaneously confront and transcend my mortality? The personal and the philosophical are completely intertwined here.

Beyond just me and my studio, I'm curious about how art functions culturally as a response to mortality. Through Becker's lens, art becomes a significant "immortality project"—a culturally validated way of symbolically extending beyond our biological limits. Art isn't just personal expression but a culturally embedded practice with existential significance.

This framework feels right for combining phenomenological investigation (the lived experience of creating under mortality's shadow), cultural analysis (how art functions as immortality project), and autobiographical reflection (my own artistic practice as case study).

I think this title captures the philosophical depth I'm seeking while remaining accessible and evocative. It acknowledges both the universal human condition of mortality and the particular way artists engage with this condition through their work. It positions my research at the intersection of existential philosophy, terror management theory, and artistic practice—precisely where I believe the most interesting insights will emerge.

Now to begin the actual work of existing between being and ending...

Automatic Fantastic

While I’ve been working through the printing process for my book, I’ve been spending some time every day painting. Here’s a critique of one I just finished (I think).

This painting seems to embody the very essence of mortality consciousness that's central to my book, “In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of Otheirnf and the Origins of Evil.”

The dark, weathered surface creates a sense of archaeological discovery — as if we're uncovering something ancient yet deeply personal. Those two circular red forms pierce through the darkness like eyes or portals, creating an almost skull-like suggestion within the abstract landscape. This duality between abstraction and figuration mirrors the tension between confronting and denying death that Becker describes so beautifully.

The scratched, excavated quality of the surface reminds me of how artists often dig beneath cultural immortality symbols to expose more authentic relationships with mortality. My technique here - layering, scraping, revealing - feels like a physical manifestation of terror management theory in action.

The limited color palette (Mars black, cadmium orange, titanium white, and burnt sienna) grounds the work in a primal, existential space. Those touches of warm copper/bronze tones against the dominant darkness suggest a kind of alchemical transformation happening within the composition.

This painting seems to demonstrate precisely what I'm exploring in my writing—how creative practice can serve as both a shield against mortality anxiety and a means of directly confronting it. The resulting tension creates something profoundly meaningful.

The Title: “Automatic Fantastic”

The "automatic" part suggests spontaneity and unconscious creation—like automatic writing or drawing, where you surrender conscious control and let deeper psychological forces emerge. This concept connects beautifully with how creativity can bypass our rational death-denial systems and access more primal truths. When I look at the scratched, layered textures in this work, I can sense that automatic process—the hand moving across the surface, driven by something beyond calculated thought. And that’s precisely where I was when making this.

"Fantastic" carries dual meanings here. On one level, it suggests the realm of fantasy or imagination—perhaps our immortality projects, which Becker would say we create to escape death anxiety. But it also connotes something extraordinary or heightened - the fantastic as a transcendent state that art can achieve.

Together, "Automatic Fantastic" suggests a kind of spontaneous transcendence - a creative state where consciousness shifts and mortality awareness transforms into something beyond ordinary perception. The title perfectly captures that paradox at the heart of artistic creation: that by engaging directly with mortality through automatic processes, we sometimes access fantastic realms of meaning that rationality alone cannot provide.

Half Animal and Half Symbolic

Based on Becker's theories, I'm excited to share my latest artwork, "Half Animal and Half Symbolic." This is a unique blend of direct positive color photography and acrylic painting. Measuring 24" x 9". The image takes you on a visual journey through the contrast and harmony between representational and non-representational art—or biological and symbolic.

The left side features a photograph of a tattooed arm holding golden-yellow dead grass, highlighting intricate tattoos (look close) against a dark background. The right side is an abstract painting with dynamic textures and warm, vibrant tones that evoke movement and intensity. Inspired by themes of existential struggles (death anxiety and terror management theory) via Ernest Becker.

The photograph is a RA-4 Color Reversal Direct Positive print. The abstract painting is acrylic on paper. It's abstractly mimicking the tattoos in the painting. It's a bit of cubism and color theory mixed up in mortality.

“The essence of man is really his paradoxical nature, the fact that he is half animal and half symbolic.”

— Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

I Feel Pretty Good About This Painting

In some cultures, fish are believed to be messengers of the spirit world, connecting the living and the ancestors.
I've been painting and working with these two figures for a while. I did a painting that was very "primitive" using the drawing here of the homo sapien. The fish is something that I've been working around in ideas. This is multimedia piece; 9" x 12" paper, acrylic and cardboard.

“What the herd hates most is the one who thinks differently; it is not so much the opinion itself, but the audacity of wanting to think for themselves, something that they do not know how to do.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

Roger Ebert's Dying Words

Roger Ebert (June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. I used to watch and read his reviews of movies. Generally speaking, I agreed most of the time with his critiques. Sometime ago, I heard that Roger Ebert’s wife, Chaz, talked about Roger’s last words. He died of cancer in 2013.

“Life is but a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

— Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”

Clem Snide released an album called "Forever Just Beyond." The lead track on the album, “Roger Ebert,” is especially arresting. The late film critic's wife, Chaz, recalled Roger Ebert's final words in a letter to her, which served as the basis for the lyrics. As the song puts it:

Did you know these were Roger Ebert’s dying words?

It’s all an elaborate hoax

It’s all an elaborate hoax

There is a vastness that can’t be contained

Or described as a thought in the flesh of our brain

It’s everything, everywhere, future and past

Dissolving forever in an eternal flash.

It’s all an elaborate hoax

It’s all an elaborate hoax

Chaz Ebert wrote, "The one thing people might be surprised about—Roger said that he didn’t know if he could believe in God. He had his doubts. But toward the end, something really interesting happened. That week before Roger passed away, I would see him, and he would talk about having visited this other place. I thought he was hallucinating. I thought they were giving him too much medication. But the day before he passed away, he wrote me a note: “This is all an elaborate hoax.” I asked him, “What’s a hoax?” And he was talking about this world and this place. He said it was all an illusion. I thought he was just confused. But he was not confused. He wasn’t visiting heaven, not the way we think of heaven. He described it as a vastness that you can’t even imagine. It was a place where the past, present, and future were happening all at once."

“Circles, Squares, and Triangles,” 3.75” x 5” acrylic and charcoal on paper.

Life as a Balancing Act

I’m sitting in a motel room at 0600 in Las Cruces, New Mexico, as I write this. I’m down here looking for a property that Jeanne and I can call home for a while.

It’s nice here. It’s a small, “big” city. When I arrived yesterday at 2 p.m., it was 70F (21C) and sunny. It was wonderful driving around with my windows down in the middle of February! It’s close to Mexico, too. We like that (I know it’s scary to some people; we’re not that way). We hope to be here in the first week of April. I’m excited about the idea of not going through another high-altitude winter. Even saying that makes me warm ;-)

As I contemplate these properties and what we want in a home and property, it reminds me of the balancing act of life itself. How many chances do you take? Do you ever roll the dice and see what happens? Or do you always play it safe? There are no definite answers; like most things in life, it’s dependent on the individual. We’re all different, with different needs and different worldviews. I do know that for every advantage, there is a disadvantage. You have to weigh these factors and come up with a solution where you find the advantages more important than the disadvantages. In other words, nothing is perfect, and you always have to compromise. That includes our lives and the situations we are faced with—specifically, our mortality. Make the most of every day. Take some chances, do something different, and feel alive; we only get a short time here; make the most of it. Try to show love to the people that are important in your life, have gratitude every morning you wake up, be in awe of nature, and humble yourself enough to see your cosmic insignificance. It helps, and it puts every day above ground in perspective.

Wish me luck. I’m headed back to Colorado tomorrow. We hope to make an offer on a property here today. We’ll see what happens.

Existential Distress No. 3

“If you kill a cockroach, you are a hero, if you kill a butterfly, you are bad. Morality has aesthetic standards.”

— Nietzsche

Isn’t it strange that we all have to deal with our ending? Some try to never think about it and will do almost anything to avoid thinking about it. Others incorporate it into their personal belief system or religious beliefs (Buddhists, for example). While I’m not "religious,” I’ve made an effort to think about my mortality every day.

For me, art drives that type of meditation or thinking. I do a lot of it on my daily walks, too. Knowing that I’m going to die and that I have limited time here brings me closer to the things and people that I love and care about. It comforts me and reassures me of my humanity. It provides a type of gratitude, awe, and humbleness. And it puts my perspective in balance—my cosmic insignificance is in full view.

The reason I do it is simple: it reminds me to take every day as a gift. It makes the sweet sweeter and the bitter not so bad. It’s not morbid or neurotic; it’s valuable and important for me; it’s a very positive thing, nothing negative at all. C. S. Lewis said, “If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort, you will not get either comfort or truth, only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.” That resonates with me. I’m a truth-seeker. I try to keep my worldview based on reality, and I try to avoid fantasies and fiction.

When was the last time you thought about not being here? What did you feel? Did it make you uneasy? Create anxiety? If it did, do you know why?

Existential Distress No. 1 and No. 2

“The neurotic opts out of life because he is having trouble maintaining his illusions about it, which proves nothing less than that life is possible only with illusions.”

― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

Existential Distress No. 2," 5" x 3.75" acrylic, charcoal, and oil (mixed media) on paper.

From (Straight) Photography to Abstract Painting

I’ve had some interesting discussions lately about my departure from making photographs. I suppose it was a bit surprising for the people who don’t know me very well to see me posting paintings and not photographic prints. I’d say for the ones that know me better, it's not so surprising.

How and why did I move in this direction? I have to start out by saying this wasn’t an accident, not in the traditional sense anyway. I’ve been (slowly) moving in this direction for at least two years, even longer if I step back farther. Also, when winter hits here in the mountains, my darkroom and studio are shut down (off-the-grid). I decided to paint and write this winter, and that’s what I’ve been doing.

After decades in photography, I needed to explore something more personal and expressive. I would even say painting is more liberating in a lot of ways than photography. I love photography; I will always make photographs, but this project, as well as my need for deeper, more personal creativity, needed something different and something beyond photography (realism or straight representational work).

What is abstract art? I define it as something in the real world that is reduced to it’s minimal parts. Usually bright or non-traditional colors and even distorted shapes. I’ve talked about non-objective or non-representational abstract work before; this is the same idea only using shapes, lines, and colors that are not representational of anything in the real world. I’m interested in both. The interesting rock formations I live near or even the cracks in the dirt paths and roads I travel on—all things that exist in the real world—can inspire me at times. And other times, I’m more interested in non-objective or non-representational work. I call it “psychological abstracts.” Paintings that come from the unconscious or subconscious mind. The unconscious and subconscious are two different phenomena. The unconscious is a process that happens automatically and is not available for introspection. The subconscious is part of our consciousness process that is not actively in focal awareness. These areas are where Becker focused his attention and his theories about existential terror. I’m a bit preoccupied with these ideas and like to see how painting reveals them. Something photography can’t really do.

My latest project, “In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of Othering and the Origins of Evil,” led me to break out the paint and brushes. It was not only the physical attributes but, moreover, the psychological impact of making paintings about our subconscious in relation to existential dread or terror. That’s probably the biggest reason for the direction I’m working in now. I find it both fascinating and powerful to create art from a place that most of us rarely think about. I like to experience a painting reveal itself to me with every brush stroke, mark, or application of paint. It is very empowering and satisfying for me.

After almost 40 years of making photographs and working in all of the mediums, variants, and formats, I simply wanted to explore something more personal. less mechanical and intimate. Painting answered that desire in a profound way. I can say with some certainty that painting will always be involved in my creative process. I really like the combination of the representational idea of photography and abstract painting.

How We Manage Our Fears of Death

This is a really good article that was published on Psychology Today by Jodi Wellman, MAPP. It's worth the read.

How We Manage Our Fears of Death

Terror Management Theory and Mortality Salience.

“Existential Distress No. 1," 3.75" x 5" acrylic, oil, charcoal, (mixed media) on paper.

KEY POINTS

• When we contemplate our mortality, conditions are ripe for terror and dread to potentially fill the void.

• Faced with "mortality salience," we find comfort in worldviews and bolstered self-esteem.

• Death reflection is a productive, experiential way to reflect on our impermanence.

Terror management theory (TMT) is a prominent theory within death studies and is born out of the belief that, as humans, we are wired with a drive for continued existence and enduring value (George & Park, 2014). When juxtaposed against our understanding that we won’t exist forever, conditions are ripe for terror and dread to potentially fill the void (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986).

We manage this disconcerting anxiety in two ways: we subscribe to a particular cultural worldview—a set of shared beliefs and values within an ingroup that provides order and meaning to us—and we also bolster our self-esteem, which is contingent on how well we believe we’ve adhered to the cultural worldviews we’ve adopted (George & Park, 2014).

Terror management theory allows us to suspend the disbelief of death and buy into the notion that some valued part of us will live on forever, even after we die. We might believe that we’ll literally carry on in an afterlife like heaven, symbolically seek to create a legacy through our children, or make a meaningful dent in the world in some way that will continue to exist beyond our time (Burke, Martens & Faucher, 2010).

Mortality Salience­

Mortality salience—the level of awareness we possess that we’re vulnerable to inevitable death (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon, Simon, & Breus, 1994)—evolved out of TMT to help conceptualize our behavior while we try to overcome our fears of mortality in the face of a deep need to stay alive (Mikulincer, & Florian, 2000). Studies consistently show that the act of pondering our demise causes us to cling more fiercely to our worldviews—whatever they might be—because they are the very constructs that help keep the terror of death at bay (Castano et al., 2011).

When the idea of death is made salient, study participants “double down” on their beliefs and value behaviors that align with their worldviews, while often disparaging others for presenting views that don’t match what they believe to be true (Castano et al., 2011).

Judges reminded of their mortality set an average bond of $455 in a hypothetical prostitution case, for example, compared to an average bond of $50 for the judges in a control group; by punishing others who violated their worldview beliefs, they reinforced their own worldviews to alleviate the tension caused by death priming (Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997).

Flashing the word "death" on a computer screen to American research participants, for mere fractions of a second, turned them against an author who criticized the U.S. (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2015).

“Choctaw Bingo: Also Known as the Deaths of My Father and Brother,” 5” x 3.75” acrylic on paper.

Individuals interviewed in front of a funeral home had a more supportive of view charities than people who weren’t as interested in making donations interviewed a few blocks out of the range of the mortality prompt (Jonas, Schimel, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2002).

Subtle reminders of death—like seeing an ambulance drive by, watching someone die onscreen, or even seeing wrinkles in the mirror—cause us to distance ourselves from our physicality (avoiding sex and other bodily activities that on some deep level signal that we’re so susceptibly perishable) and we turn up the dial on our symbolic value, like making our achievements, intellect and virtues shine (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2015).

Buffering the fear of death

Interestingly, there are ways to buffer ourselves from the angst of mortality salience. Heightened self-esteem reduces one’s worldview defense and has a protective quality against death concerns, as does the feeling of being powerful (Belmi & Pfeffer, 2016). Additionally, Juhl and Routledge’s (2016) research shows that people with high perceptions of meaning in life and people who define themselves as socially connected find themselves exempt from mortality salience anxieties, with no changes to their well-being (as measured by satisfaction with life and subjective vitality).

Encouraging individuals to reflect on their mortality awareness with openness, mindfulness and curiosity has also been shown to have a mediating effect on the guard they put up (Boyd, Morris & Goldenberg, 2017).

Experiencing mortality salience in the right context can ignite moral benefits like increasing tolerance of others and increasing one’s desire to be their best self (Oren, Shani & Poria, 2019); studies show that people (predominantly women) act in more prosocial ways in the week following death prompts (Belmi & Pfeffer, 2016).

Being primed with thoughts of death made study participants more likely to donate money into the future– a powerful demonstration of how inclined we are to want to leave a legacy that lets us live beyond the boundaries of our lifespans (Wade-Benzoni, Tost, Hernandez, & Larrick, 2012).

Reflecting on one’s own death also enhanced the levels of gratitude in study participants, as well as their appreciation of the simple pleasures in life (Frias, Watkins, Webber, & Froh, 2011).

Death reflection

Cozzolino (2006) notes that the typical mortality salience manipulations subjected to research participants represent death in a subliminal, generic, and abstract fashion—many steps removed from a true experience that might actually mimic a near-death experience. An alternative to mortality salience for death priming is a practice called death reflection, which has been found to be a more powerful and experiential way to get people in touch with their own death (Cozzolino, 2006).

Imagining oneself in the midst of an apartment fire—in vivid, graphic detail—elicits different death reactions than playing morbid word games or visiting funeral homes.

The implications of how we are primed to think about death are weighty: Research reveals that when we are exposed to our mortality as an abstract concept (as through traditional mortality salience experiments), we seek support in abstract ways—like bolstering our worldviews and religious and social affiliations. When we are exposed to our mortality in a specific and personal fashion (via death reflection) we derive support from internal resources—like construing goals, finding ways to meet our own needs, and seeking intrinsic growth (Cozzolino, 2006).

Furthering this logic, we’re motivated in different ways depending on whether we’ve triggered our abstract (traditional mortality salience) or specific (death reflection) information processing systems; under the auspice that we take action on things that have the potential to make our goals a reality (Carver & Scheier, 1990), we act in rather constrained ways that succumb to the norms of society when prompted by the abstraction of mortality salience (like driving by the cemetery), and we act in intrinsic, self-determined (Deci & Ryan, 1985) ways when prompted by existentially specific information, like forming plans that draw on our strengths and talents to achieve the goals we want for ourselves—not what our external worldview requires of us to fit in (Cozzolino, 2006).

Death reflection leads to unselfish, intrinsic behaviors (Cozzolino, Staples, Meyers, & Samboceti, 2004). These insights help put TMT and mortality salience research in perspective, and help shape future interventions intended to help people grow from reflecting on the inevitability of death.

References

Belmi, P., & Pfeffer, J. (2016). Power and death: Mortality salience increases power seeking while feeling powerful reduces death anxiety. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(5), 702-720. doi:10.1037/apl0000076

Burke, B. L., Martens, A., & Faucher, E. H. (2010). Two decades of terror management theory: A meta-analysis of mortality salience research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(2), 155-195. doi: 10.1177/1088868309352321

Carver, C., & Scheier, M. (1990). Origins and function of positive and affect: A control-process view. Psychological Review, 97, 19-35. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.97.1.19

Castano, E., Leidner, B., Bonacossa, A., Nikkah, J., Perrulli, R., Spencer, B., & Humphrey, N. (2011). Ideology, fear of death, and death anxiety. Political Psychology, 32(4), 601–621. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9221.2011.00822.x

Cozzolino, P. (2006). Death contemplation, growth, and defense: Converging evidence of dual-existential systems? Psychological Inquiry, 17(4), 278–287. doi:10.1080/10478400701366944

Cozzolino, P., Staples, A. D., Meyers, L. S. and Samboceti, J. (2004). Greed, death, and values: From terror management to “transcendence management” theory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 278–292. doi:10.1177/0146167203260716

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum Press.

Frias, A., Watkins, P., Webber, A., & Froh, J. (2011). Death and gratitude: Death reflection enhances gratitude. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 6(2), 154–162. doi:10.1080/17439760.2011.558848

George L.S., & Park C.L. (2014). Existential mattering: Bringing attention to a neglected but central aspect of meaning? In A. Batthyany & P. Russo-Netzer (Eds.), Meaning in positive and existential psychology (pp. 39-51). New York, NY: Springer.

Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1986). The causes and consequences of the need for self-esteem: A terror management theory. In R. F. Baumeister (Ed.), Public self and private self (pp. 189-212). New York: Springer-Verlag.

Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., & Pyszczynski, T. (1997). Terror management theory and research: Empirical assessments and conceptual refinements. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 29, pp. 61-139). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. doi: 10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60016-7

Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., Simon, L., & Breus, M. (1994). Role of consciousness and accessibility of death-related thoughts in mortality salience effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(4), 627–637. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.67.4.627

Jonas, E., Schimel, J., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (2002). The Scrooge effect: Evidence that mortality salience increases prosocial attitudes and behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(10), 1342–1353. doi:10.1177/014616702236834

Mikulincer, M., & Florian, V. (2000). Exploring individual differences in reactions to mortality salience: Does attachment style regulate terror management mechanisms? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(2), 260–273. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.79.2.260

Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. A. (2015). The worm at the core: On the role of death in life. New York, NY: Random House.

Wade-Benzoni, K. A., Tost, L. P., Hernandez, M., & Larrick, R. P. (2012). It’s only a matter of time: Death, legacies, and intergenerational decisions. Psychological Science, 23(7), 704–709. doi:10.1177/0956797612443967