The Color Blue and the Number Three

In some Native American cultures, the color blue represents the sky, water, and the spirit world. It can also symbolize peace, serenity, and spiritual awareness. Blue is often used in ceremonies related to prayer, meditation, and vision quests. In Native American mythology, the number three represents the vertical picture of the world. It represents the space between the Heavens and the Earth.

The Iroquois tribe also expressed the significance of the number three by smoking from a pipe three times. Traditional Native American gardeners have planted the Three Sisters (corn, beans, and squash) in many different regions of North America. Some versions of the Three Sisters legends involve the crops personified as three women who separate from each other only to find out that they are stronger together.

The Tabeguache Band of Colorado: Known Today as The Uncompahgre Ute

The Ute, pronounced as "yoot," refer to themselves as the Noochew or Nuuchui, meaning "Ute People." The term "Utah," the name of the state, originates from the Spanish word "Yutah," which describes the Ute as the "high land" or "land of the sun."

Renowned for their courage, some historians believe the Ute possessed comparable skill and cunning to the Apaches. In the past, they occupied an expansive territory of approximately 79 million acres in the Great Basin region. Their extensive travels through the picturesque mountainous landscapes of the Western region led them to establish trails, the remnants of which proved invaluable to the white settlers who eventually displaced them.

Early observers noted the remarkable proficiency of Ute women in tanning hides, which served as valuable trade items and were used for clothing. They adeptly worked with buffalo, deer, elk, and mountain sheep hides. Ute women typically adorned themselves in long, belted dresses, leggings, and moccasins. Meanwhile, men wore shirts, leggings, and moccasins for their daily activities, reserving elaborate feathered headdresses for special occasions. During times of conflict, many men painted their bodies and faces using yellow and black pigments. Women occasionally painted their faces and adorned their hair partings. Some Ute individuals pierced their noses, inserting small, polished animal bones, while others tattooed their faces using cactus thorns dipped in ashes. Both men and women occasionally wore necklaces crafted from animal claws, bones, fish skeletons, and juniper seeds.

Early Ute ceremonies involved clothing embellishments such as paint, hair fringes, rows of elk teeth, or brightly dyed porcupine quills. Later, as the Ute acquired beads from European traders, their costumes incorporated intricate beadwork.

The Ute held two significant ceremonies—the Sun Dance and the Bear Dance—which continue to be performed annually.

The Sun Dance reflects a personal desire for spiritual power provided by the Great Spirit, but each dancer also represents their family and community, transforming the dance into a communal sharing experience. The Sun Dance is based on a fable about a man and a woman who left their tribe amid a severe famine. During their voyage, they discovered a deity who taught them the Sun Dance practices. When they returned to their tribe and performed the ceremony, a herd of buffalo appeared, putting an end to the hunger.

The Sun Dance ceremony encompasses several days of clandestine rituals followed by a public dance around a Sun Dance pole, symbolizing the connection to the Creator. These rituals involve fasting, prayer, smoking, and the preparation of ceremonial objects.

Describing a modern Sun Dance atop Sleeping Ute Mountain, journalist Jim Carrier recounted, "Night and day, for four days, the dancers charged the pole and retreated, back and forth in a personal gait. There were shuffles, hops, and a prancing kick. While they blew whistles made from eagle bones, their bare feet marked a 25-foot (7.5-kilometer) path in the dirt."

The Bear Dance, conducted annually in the spring, venerates the grizzly bear, revered by the Ute for imparting strength, wisdom, and survival skills. In earlier times, the Bear Dance coincided with the bears emerging from hibernation and aimed to awaken the bears to guide the Ute towards bountiful sources of nuts and berries. The dance served as a joyous social occasion after enduring a harsh winter.

The Bear Dance involves constructing a sizable circular enclosure made of sticks, representing a bear's den. Music played within the enclosure symbolizes the thunder that rouses the slumbering bears. The dance follows a "lady's choice" tradition, allowing Ute women to show their preference for a certain man. The Bear Dance ceremony traditionally lasted for four days and four nights. The dancers wore plumes that they would leave on a cedar tree at the east entrance of the corral. Leaving the feathers behind represented discarding past troubles and starting fresh.

MY PHOTOGRAPHS AS RESIDUE
My photographs for this project are what I consider residue. Residue is a small amount of something that remains after the main part has gone, been taken, or been used. It’s a lot like memory. The function of photography is to somehow "show" the memories and residue of a person, place, or thing.

I’m approaching these ideas indirectly. It’s a conscious choice to make the work somewhat abstract, like all memories are. This isn’t a documentary project, although it’s difficult to put anything in a box. There are elements that seem to fit, at least somewhat, into the documentary category. However, I would never consider this work documentary photography. The context and narrative provide the direction of the work. It’s my personal journey to discover answers to questions that I’ve wrestled with for decades. There’s no doubt it’s interdisciplinary work, combining art and several disciplines in the sciences and psychology. I think that’s what makes it interesting.

The book, in context, will give the reader and viewer an insight, not only about my journey but also about the human condition and what knowledge of our mortality does to us. I connect the events of the 19th century clearly to the theories of death anxiety and terror management theory. I show both the beauty of the land as well as inferring the loss. I show life as well as death through the flora and landscape photographs. My hope is that for those who read it, it will inspire and enlighten. That it will bring forward the beauty of life and appreciation of the awe that surrounds us, as well as an understanding of how evil is manifested in our human condition.

“Mountain Bell Cactus and White Granite,” 10” x 10” (25,4 x 24,4cm) RA-4 Reversal Direct Color Print, June 29, 2023 Pediocactus simpsonii, or Mountain Ball Cactus, is a species that grows at high altitudes in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

My Plans: Spring, Summer & Autumn 2023

“The bitter medicine he prescribes — contemplation of the horror of our inevitable death — is , paradoxically , the tincture that adds sweetness to mortality .”

— Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (foreword)

Winter in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado is not over yet, but my mind is already thinking ahead to spring, summer, and autumn. I’m starting to make plans to work on my project again. It’s not too far off, and I’m excited to start making photographs again.

In the winter, I go into "photographic hibernation." I shut down the studio and darkroom, and I only go into the building (maybe) once a month to check on things. I thought it would drive me insane not to be able to create images all winter. I’ve found quite the opposite. In fact, I would recommend taking a break from the craft and working on the concept with no distractions—it’s been a great way for me to see, with more clarity and purpose, what I’m trying to do. I think I’m making my best work by writing for a few months and making images for a few months. I've found that time is the greatest asset when creating work like this. I've never had such distraction-free time before, and I'm beyond grateful for it. Rollo May said, “Absorption, being caught up in, wholly involved, and so on, are used commonly to describe the state of the artist or scientist when creating or even a child at play. By whatever name one calls it, genuine creativity is characterized by and intensity of awareness, a heightened consciousness.“

In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of “Othering” (example book cover)

My book, In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of “Othering”, is going to be my "magnum opus." I’m not saying that it will be my final body of work, but it will completely close this chapter of inquiry for me. It’s literally a body of work, both written and photographed, that examines questions that I’ve wrestled with for over 30 years of my life. It’s a big deal to me, and I hope it resonates with a few other people. I know it’s a difficult topic to get people interested in; it’s not something that’s addressed much, but it should be. That’s the very point of this work. Through the historical events of the 19th century, I’m telling the story of “othering” (xenophobia) and what happened to the Tabeguache Utes that lived on the land where I now live.

This is not a body of work that documents the Tabeguache Utes, but explores the land, plants, objects, and symbols they used here. My objective is to explore the denial of death and the negative consequences it bears when it’s not directed in a positive, non-destructive way. This book will address why things like this happen and will continue to happen. I feel like it’s a unique blend of art, history, and psychology that applies to every human being and all human behavior.

Making art, especially a large body of work on a specific topic, is an interesting process to go through. I’ve done it several times in my life, but this is different. As I just mentioned, this is the culmination of all of my previous work. It reveals answers to the questions I’ve been asking for so long. It feels like I’ve worked on smaller projects to warm up for this. I’m beyond excited about all of it.

I'm not sure what the next chapter of my life will bring. I’m not even sure it will be photography. I find my interest in traditional photography waning. Don’t misunderstand me; I love photography, but my interest is waning in how it’s being used today and how it’s changed over the years. Even the purpose of working with historic processes (something that should be very special) has turned into something that I don’t recognize and have no interest in. Everything feels exploited and commodified to me.

“Absorption, being caught up in, wholly involved, and so on, are used commonly to describe the state of the artist or scientist when creating or even a child at play. By whatever name one calls it, genuine creativity is characterized by and intensity of awareness, a heightened consciousness.”

— Rollo May

It seems that most people working in these processes are firmly rooted in commercial work or are immersed in constant technical talk about processes and equipment (I’ve written several essays on this topic). There seems to be so little real output of expression or ideas using these processes. To be honest, it bores me to death; I have nothing left to say about it. So whatever I do next, I'll be prepared for it. If it involves photography, it won’t be commercially based or solely technical—it will be personal and expressive. It'll come to me naturally and organically, just like this work and my previous work have.

PLANS FOR THIS YEAR
For 2023, I’m going to continue to work on the “flora” portion of my project. I have several more plants I want to photograph as well as try some new approaches to making these images. There are quite a few landscape images I’m after, and I'll attempt some “fauna” work as well. I’ll continue to work it out and discover new ways to communicate these ideas semiotically.

I’m still very much in "creation mode" for the project—work, work, work—meaning that I’ll spend a few months editing a lot of photographs (about 200 images) and deciding what best represents my ideas for the concepts. I’m sitting on about 130 negatives from the work I did last year (2022). These are wet and dry collodion negatives, as well as paper negatives (calotypes). I have about 30 to 40 photogenic drawing prints and cyanotypes, too. I’ll have several print-out-processes to select from as well. Different negatives print differently in various P.O.P. processes. Even the paper selection can make a big difference. It's a lot of work, but it's also a lot of fun.

This year, I plan to do another 100–125 negatives plus several photogenic drawings and cyanotypes. I want a large variety to work with. The book will have between 75 and 100 images. To get that, I’ll need about 200 images to edit from. They will vary in process, too. There will be palladiotypes, kallitypes, salt prints, gelatin and collodion aristotypes, cyanotypes, Rawlins oil prints, and photogenic drawing prints. The substrate and execution will vary too. I’m going to try to make some very interesting images involving both content and process. They will be unique and, hopefully, engaging and interesting. That’s the goal. I want the visuals to connect with and represent the writing (concept) of the work more than anything else.

I’m thinking that this year’s work won’t be shared online. As much as I like sharing the work, I think I may keep this second year to myself. When I publish the book, I want most of the images to be "new" to the viewers. I think that seeing the photographs in the book with all of the text available adds more power to the concept. I hope those interested will stay tuned for the book. It will be worth the wait, I promise.

MY THOUGHTS ON SHARING, & SOCIAL MEDIA
I enjoy sharing work with people online. Most of the time, it’s a very positive experience. It builds community and is generally a positive thing. I try to stay away from the contentious stuff and just share with those that are interested. That will change somewhat over the coming year and the rest of this work. I’ll explain why.

I’ll continue to publish essays here (on my blog) over the coming year. This is like a public journal for me. I “exercise” stuff from my mind here; it’s cathartic for me. Sometimes, I’ll even come back to it to find something I’ve written about or a reference. It’s a good thing for me. And to those that read it, thank you, and thanks for the positive and kind words about it. So what about social media?

Social media has a tight grip on all of us—too much control over our personal, artistic, and creative lives. Too much influence is placed on what people will "like" or not, and the number of “likes.” Why do we put so much weight on social media? We want those dopamine hits! I get it.

Beyond that, there's surveillance capitalism and the data these large corporations are gathering on us via these platforms—it's intrusive and scary! We give it to them freely and ignorantly. Every Facebag survey you take on "What Kind of Potato Are You?" (or some other ridiculous thing) is simply getting more information about you to sell you stuff that you don’t need. These platforms are constantly encouraging people to compare themselves to each other (especially dangerous for young people). And the algorithms determine what will keep you scrolling for hours on end—so-called doom scrolling—and then feed it to you on an endless loop.

There’s so much negativity on these platforms. That alone should keep us away, but it doesn’t. The arguing and fighting over who is the best and smartest, as well as the "experts" shouting down, belittling, and degrading others, and the cultural and political squabbles, are heartbreaking. It's exactly what I read about and write about every day—existential uncertainty—and this is how people deal with the anxiety.

I see a lot of (malignant) narcissism on these platforms as well: “filtered selfies” and great lifestyles that are all fake. I get that people use it to bolster their self-esteem—life is difficult and frightening, and the knowledge of our impending death (death anxiety) drives us to deny it and act out this way—and social media assists in doing exactly that. In his book The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker said, "But it is too all-absorbing and relentless to be an aberration; it expresses the heart of the creature: the desire to stand out, to be the one in creation. When you combine natural narcissism with the basic need for self-esteem, you create a creature who has to feel himself an object of primary value: first in the universe, representing in himself all of life."

Every day, people post something that says, in essence, "Please like me and validate my existence; I seek meaning and significance." This is what Becker talks about constantly in his books. I wish there was a viable alternative. When I first started the Collodion Forum Board in 2003, there was a great community there. It lasted for a few years. People were courteous, kind, and generous with their knowledge and information. It didn’t have all of the negative aspects that we see on social media today (photo groups and egos). A lot of people working in wet collodion today got their start there - in fact most of them. Times change, and we move on. I wax nostalgic.

I think I can convince people that there are better and healthier ways to bolster their self-esteem. My book has nothing to do with "self-help,” but it will talk about ways to deal with death anxiety without being so self-centered and destructive.

There are some positive things about social media (very few things), but as a whole, the liabilities outweigh any of the good or positive things. I want to break the rules and try something different, like not sharing everything I make. How novel is that?

MOUNTAIN LIVING & SOLITUDE
I’ve had a few months of writing and time to lay out the book for its first iteration. So far, I feel great about what I’ve written. The writing has really allowed me to think about the photographs I want to make. This time has been priceless in that way. I write every day, seven days a week, some days more than others, but I still write. And I read every day, too. I’m always looking for books, films, music, and art in general that may have some connection to these ideas. I take in a wide variety of information; it seems to help me make the connections I need to write about these theories. I’ve written a lot about being fully aware of how I’m using art and creativity to buffer my own anxiety. I would go even farther and say that I’m not only buffering the anxiety, I’m feeding off of it. In other words, I’m using existential terror creatively in my favor. I feel like I'm getting one over on my own death awareness.

“I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news. ”

— John Muir

This June (2023), we will begin our third year of living on the mountain. Living up here has definitely changed me. Maybe it’s the mountain air, the isolation, the peace and quiet, being close to nature and the wildlife, or a combination of all of it. Whatever it is, it’s had a big impact on how I view the world. It’s allowed me to see what’s important and what’s not. What I actually need and don't need, as well as the ability to say "no," sounds trite and cliche to say, but it’s true.

Time away from a toxic culture that influences your life without your knowledge resets your mind; it changes you. Living in cities and suburbs directs your life to the point where you become something you don't want to be: a conspicuous consumer—not just a consumer, but someone who is always looking for the next thing to buy, have, or be, endlessly seeking satisfaction but never receiving it. The big ontological question is: If we have everything, why aren’t we happy?

My changes are positive, fulfilling, and meaningful to me. I'm forever grateful to be here; we love this mountain. And I’m filled with gratitude to spend my days thinking about the human (paradoxical) condition, art, photography, and how to live each day of my life in the best way possible.

BY THE END OF 2023…
My hope is that by the end of this year, I’ll be going through prints and making selections for the book. I feel like I can have the writing mostly completed by the spring. There will be refinement and editing, but the bulk of it will be completed by June. I’ll work on it periodically throughout the year and have a final edit done by an outside resource.

Included in the book is an extensive autobiography. In fact, the second chapter, The Introduction, is where I write extensively about how my life (artistic and creative) unfolded and put me where I am now. It was an “eye-opener” to me. I think any artist or photographer will appreciate reading about my journey.

I’ve incorporated art, psychology, history, anthropology, theology, philosophy, sociology, and other disciplines to accomplish what I’ve set out to do with this book. I've had to combine all of the disciplines and theories in order to explain them so that people like me, a layperson, can understand them. I wanted the writing to be simple and understandable, not academic. It’s been a big chore, but it’s working.

The interdisciplinary approach to this work is critical. It truly supports the ideas in ways that one or two areas couldn’t. My goal is to make the art and my expression of these ideas the central theme. I want the photographs to act as a catalyst for understanding the psychology of "othering."

I feel like we don’t acknowledge the psychological underpinnings of photography enough. It’s easy to get academic about it, and again, I don’t want that. I want an authentic connection between the images and the psychology that they represent. So far, I feel very good about what I’ve accomplished. Let’s see what this year brings.

“We are all in search of a feeling more connected to reality... We indulge in drugs and alcohol, or engage in dangerous sports or risky behavior, just to wake ourselves up from the sleep of our daily existence and feel a heightened sense of connection to reality. In the end, the most satisfying and powerful way to feel this connection is through creativity. Engaged in the creative process we feel more alive than ever, because we are making something and not merely consuming, Masters of the small reality we create.”

— Robert Greene, Mastery

The Wounded and The Fallen

People wonder why terrible things happen in the world. I’ve had a preoccupation with this question for decades. It’s what made me pick up a camera all those years ago. Why do certain people or certain groups fall victim to horrible events? If you follow what's happening in Ukraine today and in many other parts of the world, you know what I mean. It’s heart-wrenching.

These events can be very personal, or they can be global. They usually deal with the same thing; genocide, ethnocide, loss, tragedy, and injustice. And most of the time, they are about "us" and "them." I would suggest that because we fear death, it is in our nature to always find "the other" to blame, use as a scapegoat, humiliate, demean, and ultimately kill.

And I would argue that “the other" challenges our psychological buffers against existential anxiety; we are left defenseless. This is why we can’t get along with people who are different from us. This is the definition of death anxiety. It’s our inability to psychologically deal with the instinct to stay alive and the knowledge that we’re going to die.

One of the biggest problems is a lack of self-awareness. For most people, death is a vague abstraction that doesn’t pertain to them. William James said, “There’s a panic rumbling beneath the surface of consciousness.” I can see that statement clearly when I look at the history of the world and even current events. I can see it in people and they don’t even recognize it.

Ernest Becker said in his book, Escape from Evil, "In this view, man is an energy-converting organism who must exert his manipulative powers, who must damage his world in some ways, who must make it uncomfortable for others, etc., by his own nature as an active being. He seeks self-expansion from a very uncertain power base. Even if man hurts others, it is because he is weak and afraid, not because he is confident and cruel. Rousseau summed up this point of view with the idea that only the strong person can be ethical, not the weak one."

My photographs are a way of communicating these ideas in more poetic and lyrical ways than words can. They are about ideas and emotions surrounding death anxiety and terror management theory—subtle visual cues that are difficult to describe in words.

This work is about the Tabeguache-Ute people and many other groups throughout history that have been victims of the paradoxical human condition. It’s about their land, their plants and animals, and some of the symbolism and objects they used here. At least, that’s what the images are about on the surface. In reality, they are about the "residue," or what’s left here, visually representing the psychology of the land and objects. Moreover, it's about why it happened. It attempts to answer the big questions surrounding human behavior and "the other." This work is as much about psychology as it is about photography.

The pictures are not a romanticized version of indigenous people. There are no images of people at all in this work. I’ve made a conscious decision not to photograph people. I’m not interested in promoting the white, Eurocentric view of Native Americans. I’m not interested in trying to show their "Indianness." I see this as another way of keeping them victims of the colonial gaze. It’s almost a form of continued ethnic cleansing. There is so much baggage there to unpack, and most people don’t have the skills or knowledge to do it. These kinds of images carry that weight, whether the creator or viewer are aware of it or not.

“When the angel of death sounds his trumpet, the pretenses of civilization are blown from men’s heads into the mud like hats in a gust of wind.” – George Bernard Shaw