My Book: In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of Othering

"What you're trying to create is a certain kind of an indispensable presence, where your position in the narrative is not contingent on whether somebody likes you, or somebody knows you, or somebody's a friend, or somebody's being generous to you." —Kerry James Marshall, NPR News 2017

MY BOOK
The cold weather has arrived in the Rocky Mountains. I’ve changed my routine a little bit. I’m up early every day to start a fire, make coffee, and get our cat, Moshe, fed.

I read a lot, and I’m writing a lot every day. I enjoy it immensely. I’m very excited about the content of this book. My goal is to have the text fully explain the theories that I go on about in these posts. However, I want to do it in a simple and straightforward way so that a layperson can understand and relate to it. I believe I can make that happen, I’ve been spending a lot of time synthesizing the material and translating it into simple English. I can’t emphasize how important these ideas are for every human being to understand—they are truly life-changing—and that’s not an overstatement.

In order for people to understand these ideas, I need to explain how I came to them through my art and photography work. That’s a long story with a lot of history. I’ve been struggling with articulating why I’ve done what I’ve done over the years, and now I have the answers. I’m excited to share all of it.

I’m digging up memories of my early photography days and going over past projects and work. I’m evaluating what I was trying to do and understanding what I learned from each body of work. It’s like putting a puzzle together.

I just wrote about an exhibition I had in undergraduate school. That was over 30 years ago. The ideas I was reaching for are so clear to me now. And they are more relevant to my work now than ever. The connections and insights I make doing this are really enlightening to me. They clarify my intentions and complete my journey toward understanding the psychology of "othering," which is the only issue I've ever felt motivated to address in my work. Because of that, this work is the most important I’ve ever done.

The writing has turned into a mini-biography, at least in the sense of my photography and art life. It’s going to be interesting to hear the feedback when people read these stories and see the connections I’ve made. In a lot of ways, this project is the culmination of my life’s work. It sums up everything I’ve done in my career as an artist and photographer. Not only that, but I clearly define the motivation for creating the work.

It feels really good to share the ideas, the work, the progress, and the insight gained from all of it. I think it will be valuable for people interested in the arc of a fine art career in photography. I'm grateful for my life in the arts, and I’m particularly grateful that I’ve spent my career in photography. It’s been very good for me. It’s given me insight and direction that I wouldn’t have been able to get from anything else.

I’m breaking the book into the following chapters and parts:

The Preface

Artist’s Statement

Chapter One: Introduction

Chapter Two: Landscapes

Chapter Three: Flora

Chapter Four: Symbols & Objects

Chapter Five: Essays On Mortality, Photography & Philosophy

Stay tuned!

A whole plate calotype (paper negative) in a window mat—a dwarf Ponderosa Pine tree.

Rocky Mountain Cotton Grass

Ernest Becker said, “The last thing a man can admit to himself is that his life-ways are arbitrary: This is one of the reasons that people often show derisive glee and scorn over the strange customs of other lands—it is a defense against the awareness that his own way of life may be just as fundamentally contrived as any other. One culture is always a potential menace to another because it is a living example that life can go on heroically with a value framework totally alien to one’s own.” (The Denial of Death)

What is Becker saying? I would sum it up like this: We have our own cultural worldviews, things we collectively believe in that sustain us and stave off death anxiety. When we see “the other"—other cultures or ways of being—it threatens our own. That threat creates doubt, and that doubt awakens death anxiety.

That’s why it’s so important to recognize the aggression you feel toward people who are different. This is the birthplace of those emotions. When I talk about these theories being critical, this is one that is at the top, or near the top, of the list. It’s vital to be conscious of our death anxiety and how we manage it.

Memento Mori Ergo Carpe Diem & Memento Mori, Amor Fati

Don’t you love Latin words? I’m being facetious. Memento Mori Ergo Carpe Diem roughly translates as “Remember you’re going to die; make the most of life!” This is a very old saying from the Romans. And Memento Mori, Amor Fati roughly translates as, “Remember you’re going to die; love your fate.” Friedrich Nietzsche said this. Let’s address these and talk about some definitions.

KNOWLEDGE & WISDOM: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
What’s the difference between “mortality salience” and “mortality sapience?” I’ll give you my definitions and explain why they are important to distinguish from one another.

“Mortality salience.” To simplify, I would rephrase this as “mortality knowledge.” This is the knowledge that you’re going to die someday. It’s similar to knowing that when you flip the light switch to the on position, the light will come on. You know that will happen. However, you probably don’t understand how electricity works.

“Mortality sapience,“ rephrased to “mortality wisdom.” Have you ever heard the saying, "Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit, and wisdom is knowing not to put it in the fruit salad?” In very simple terms, that’s the difference between knowing something and understanding it.

Learning new information involves storing information, which is knowledge. You know something. On the other hand, wisdom is more concerned with insight, acceptance, and the basic "essence" of things in life. So there is a wide chasm between knowing something and understanding it.

MEMENTO MORI ERGO CARPE DIEM & MEMENTO MORI, AMOR FATI
Terror Management Theory (TMT) proposes that humans experience a fundamental psychological conflict between the instinct of self-preservation and the understanding that death is both inevitable and, to some extent, unpredictable; a state described as mortality salience. TMT is based on the pioneering theoretical work of anthropologist Ernest Becker, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning 1973 book The Denial of Death argued that mortality salience drives most human action – and thus, much of human civilization.

TMT also proposes the schema of symbolic immortality as a coping mechanism in the face of mortality salience. The term “symbolic immortality” was coined by Harvard psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton and his colleague Eric Olson.

Lifton and Olson identify five primary methods or modes of transmission of symbolic immortality, which can be summarized as:

1) the theological (religious teachings on the supernatural survival of the soul)

2) the biological (genetic and ephemeral family heritage)

3) the creative (long-lasting artistic, scientific, and/or benevolent achievement)

4) the natural (via participation in the eternal cycles of the material universe)

5) the experiential (transcendental experiences of timeless insight).

This can be considered a symbolic immortality system within which mortality salience is the first stage, followed by an immersion in what might be described as mortality sapience. (Alt-death/Duende)

Sam Keen’s introduction to the current edition of The Denial of Death: “Becker sketches two possible styles of nondestructive heroism (…)

For the exceptional individual, there is the ancient philosophical path of wisdom. Becker, like Socrates, advises us to practice dying. Cultivating awareness of our death leads to disillusionment, the loss of character armor, and a conscious choice to abide in the face of terror. The existential hero who follows this way of self-analysis differs from the average person in knowing that he or she is obsessed. Instead of hiding within the illusions of character, he sees his impotence and vulnerability.

The disillusioned hero rejects the standardized heroics of mass culture in favor of cosmic heroism, in which there is real joy in throwing off the chains of uncritical, self-defeating dependency and discovering new possibilities of choice and action and new forms of courage and endurance. Living with the voluntary consciousness of death, the heroic individual can choose to despair or to make a Kierkegaardian leap and trust in the “sacrosanct vitality of the cosmos,” in the unknown god of life whose mysterious purpose is expressed in the overwhelming drama of cosmic evolution.”

“Seven Crow Feathers (detail)"—a whole plate palladium-toned photogenic drawing on waxed vellum paper.

The photogenic drawing straight from the contact frame - pre processing.

Are You Challenging My Illusion?

I want to direct this essay directly at you. I want to talk about your death anxiety. I’m trying to find the best way to succinctly explain it to you. I want to explain what it is, the fact that it exists in everyone, how you repress it and why, and what happens when your illusion is challenged. I hope you get something from it.

The first issue to deal with is understanding that death anxiety is the main driver or motivator in life. In hierarchical order, this is at the top. Everything else would be listed below it. Everything. Also, if you didn’t know it, it’s the premise of my project, ”In the Shadow of Sun Mountain.” This is what the work is about.

First things first, in that order. Like other living creatures, we have a strong instinct to stay alive. We are also the only beings (or animals) that know we are going to die. That creates some major cognitive dissonance, psychologically speaking. What does that do to us exactly? It creates death anxiety. How do we cope with death anxiety? We repress it. We bury it deep in our subconscious. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be able to stand up in the morning. It would be overwhelming.

How do we bury it? What mechanisms are in place to do that? To answer those questions, we need to address illusions, or what Becker calls “immortality projects.” He says we all strive for heroism. It’s our cultural worldview that provides the buffer and allows us to put death out of our minds. We bury this terror (the knowledge of our death) through our cultural worldviews. Whatever our culture holds up to be meaningful and significant is what we use. For example, we find meaning and significance in our jobs, our families, our social clubs, making art, religion, holidays, earning money, a manicured lawn in suburbia, material things, a fancy sports car, being youthful, being famous, etcetera, etcetera. It’s anything that the culture holds up as meaningful and significant. These distractions allow us to psychologically bury the terror of mortality. Striving for heroism distracts us from the reality of our human condition. Everyone has a buffer; if they didn’t, they would be in a constant state of anxiety and depression. Sheldon Solomon said if we had to psychologically deal with our death—if it was constantly on our mind—we wouldn’t be able to stand up in the morning. We’d be reaching for a Valium the size of a Buick to deal with existing. Whether you realize this or not, you do it every day. That’s how you make it through each day.

"The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttress; you need a religion if you are terrified of death." - Gore Vidal

Some “immortality projects” are not ideal—the pursuit of wealth and fame, for example. While it seems worthwhile and meaningful, it’s always short-lived and very superficial. The pursuit of staying young through surgeries, botox, and hair dye will only last so long too. It’s all done in vain and will never work—none of them will. However, some are better for humanity and the environment than others. I believe good or healthy projects include creative pursuits, spending time with loved ones, being in nature, critical thinking, authenticity, and working on gratitude, humility, and openness. Albert Camus said, “There is only one liberty, to come to terms with death, thereafter, anything is possible.“ I think what he meant by this is that living in reality, as harsh as it may be, will give you freedom—true freedom from the illusions we use to buffer the anxiety of death. I think of Buddhist monks, for example. They understand that life is suffering (death anxiety) and meditate every day on death.

What happens when your illusion is challenged? Anytime your anxiety buffer, or illusion, is challenged, it will cause you to react in a negative way. Religion or politics are good examples of this. When someone from a different religion or political group says or does something you disagree with, it makes you angry, it stirs emotion, and it makes you question, subconsciously, if your illusion is the correct illusion. When that happens, your instinct is to defend your illusion, sometimes at all costs. This is where the treatment of “the other” comes into play. We start wars, we kill, we ostracize, we humiliate, and we hate all to defend our illusion or worldview. That’s how much we want to buffer the knowledge of our death and impermanence.

TERROR MANAGEMENT THEORY (TMT)
This is a great video to explain all of this. The movie, “The Matrix” really deals with TMT and how we fashion the world we want to live in or not.

“Rocky Mountain Wheat Grass-Photogenic Drawing,” a whole plate, palladium-toned, waxed, photogenic drawing on vellum paper. I designed a way to process these with the deepest color and to fit cleanly into the whole plate (6.5” x 8.5”) window opening of the mat. They look super gorgeous—I hope you can get an idea from the iPhone photo!

THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE HUMAN RACE
I have to mention Thomas Ligotti's book, "The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror." I have not read it, not completely anyway. I get the gist of it from what I have read. It’s heavy. It’s depressing and can challenge you with some of his “truths.” The author is known for supernatural horror stories. In this book, he uses philosophy, metaphysics, science, and biology to make the claim that life is a mistake. "Existence is a condition with no redeeming qualities,” he writes. and that’s tame compared to some of it. Here’s the strange part: there is a lot of it that I agree with. He borrowed a page or two from Becker’s books.

Like a Buddhist, he believes that life is suffering and that “human suffering will remain insoluble as long as human beings exist.” And the sooner human beings cease to exist, the better. But why does he write this, and what is the “conspiracy” of the title? It all stems from the self-knowledge that we do our best not to acknowledge: the fact that we alone of all living creatures know that we are going to die. Does that sound familiar? As with Eve’s apple or the snake in the Garden of Eden, “human existence [is] a tragedy that need not have been were it not for the intervention in our lives of a single, calamitous event: the evolution of consciousness—the parent of all horrors.” In other words, we act as if we lack “the knowledge of a race of beings that is only passing through this shoddy cosmos.” He addresses the absurdity of life, drawing on Albert Camus and other absurdist philosophers.

He’s not the first person to postulate that consciousness was an evolutionary mistake. Many philosophers have hinted at it for millennia. I’m not sure it was a mistake, but it does create big problems for us. Trying to reconcile our biological drive to stay alive with knowing we are going to die and be forgotten is a big burden to bear, as is understanding that everything we do is an illusion that we create to distract us from the knowledge that there is no purpose or meaning in life.

Before processing and waxing the print.

Exterminate All The Brutes

“You already know enough. So do I. It is not knowledge we lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we know and to draw conclusions.”
― Sven Lindqvist, "Exterminate All the Brutes": One Man's Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide

Have you seen the four-part series from Raul Peck called “Exterminate All The Brutes”? It’s based in large part on Sven Lindqvist’s book of the same name. And Lindqvist based his book on Joseph Conrad’s book, “Heart of Darkness.” Francis Ford Coppola’s film, “Apocalypse Now,” was based on Conrad’s book, too. Whew! That’s quite a lineage! There is very powerful content in all of it!

I highly recommend reading both Conrad’s book and Lindqvist’s book. They deal with the genocide in Africa (committed by the Europeans)—colonial genocide. Conrad’s story is about what happened in the Congo, and Lindqvist’s book gets at the root of the genocide in Africa as a whole. It’s a modern-day diary or travelogue in a way too. And definitely check out Peck’s piece on HBO. It’s an amazing 4-hour series. It’s so well-made, accurate, and very moving that I think it should be mandatory viewing for every American and European. I recommended it last year on my YouTube show. I used to do recommended reading and recommended watching every week. Doing that kept me in the books and films. I found some really great material.

My work has always confronted and questioned how marginalized communities are treated. This is not new territory for me, but the information that I’ve been studying over the past few years has really taken it to a new and solid place. Ernest Becker and Sheldon Solomon have given me a new set of tools to work with. These resources, among many others, have informed and supported my work in big ways. For many years, I’ve wrestled with the real history of America and Europe—the places of my heritage—and how we treat (and have treated) “the other.”

I lived in Germany for five years and tried my best to come to terms with what happened there by making photographs. I studied, traveled, and explored everything I could that was related to that history. I ended up making a body of work called “Vergangenheitsbewältigung.” Unfortunately, I never got to address the core reasons for what happened there. If I could go back now, I would be able to square that circle of confusion. For the most part, I would be able to answer that question today with quite a bit of confidence.

Now, I live on the land of the Ute/Tabeguache and am trying to do the same thing, but armed with powerful and enlightening information. The information I’m in possession of now is based on empirical evidence—it’s the best answer we have to this enormous problem. It’s a good feeling. And it empowers me and drives the work in a certain direction—in an authentic direction—that motivates me to share these ideas with my brothers and sisters of the world. That’s very important to me and one of the main reasons the work is being done. I’m more concerned with the viewer understanding the theories than liking the photographs, Both would be ideal, but the theory is far more important than the pictures.

I have a lot of life experience that lends itself to expressing ideas in a certain way. I’m not quite sixty years old yet, but I can see why they say you make your best work at this stage of your life. I get it. There seems to be an opening or willingness here that I’ve never really experienced before. There’s also a certain sense of maturity in the relationship to the photographs, or making the photographs. There’s an unrestrained passion to make work that is interesting and powerful in your eyes, regardless of what anyone else thinks. Like life itself, there’s a beautiful freedom that I’ve never fully experienced before. I’m very grateful for it.

Currently, I’m writing an introduction for my book and working on some essays for it. I’ve completed my artist’s statement and have about 15 essays so far to include in the book. I feel good about the direction this is going.

It’s winter here in the Rocky Mountains now. My book project gives me plenty to work on when the snow flies and it’s cold out. We do get nice sunny days quite often, so I’ll continue to make pictures and prints, but it will be less often and not in any quantity. I had a great year working on this project. It was everything and more than I expected. If I get another year like this, I’ll have something exciting to work with. I’m in no hurry to finish. In fact, I only give myself general guidelines and no real timeline. I think I’ll finish next year, but who knows?

The Yarrow plant gone to seed-a photogenic drawing.

A medicinal plant gone to seed—a print from the vellum negative on salted paper.

Homo Mortalis And The Fourth Turning

“Art is essentially the affirmation, the blessing, the deification of existence.” - Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, 1901

There are some very interesting philosophies in our world today concerning the way we live and the cycles we go through as human beings. I want to address two of them in this essay.

HOMO MORTALIS (MORTAL MAN)
The first is from the book, “The Worm At The Core: The Role Of Death In Life,” by Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, and Sheldon Solomon. If you’ve read other essays that I’ve posted, I’m sure you recognize the reference.

They have suggested that the foreknowledge of our own death may be what most widely separates us from other mammals. Perhaps we might even be more aptly called Homo mortalis rather than Homo sapiens. They write, “There is now compelling evidence that, as William James suggested a century ago, death is indeed the worm at the core of the human condition. The awareness that we humans will die has a profound and pervasive effect on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in almost every domain of human life—whether we are conscious of it or not.”

It’s a transformative and fascinating theory. It’s based on robust and groundbreaking experimental research, and it reveals how our unconscious fear of death powers almost everything we do, shining a light on the hidden motives that drive human behavior. More than one hundred years ago, the American philosopher William James dubbed the knowledge that we must die "the worm at the core" of the human condition. In 1974, cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker won the Pulitzer Prize for his book The Denial of Death, arguing that the terror of death has a pervasive effect on human affairs. Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski clarify these theories with wide-ranging evidence of the many ways the worm at the core guides our thoughts and actions, from the great art we create to the devastating wars we wage.

The Worm at the Core is the product of twenty-five years of in-depth research. Drawing from innovative experiments conducted around the globe, Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski show conclusively that the fear of death and the desire to transcend it inspire us to buy expensive cars, crave fame, put our health at risk, and disguise our animal nature. The fear of death can also prompt judges to dole out harsher punishments, make children react negatively to people different from themselves, and inflame intolerance and violence.

But the worm at the core need not consume us. Emerging from their research is a unique and compelling approach to these deeply existential issues: terror management theory. TMT proposes that human culture infuses our lives with order, stability, significance, and purpose, and these anchors enable us to function from moment to moment without becoming overwhelmed by the knowledge of our ultimate fate. (edited/Goodreads)

I’ll write more about Terror Management Theory (TMT) in the future. It does provide some insight into managing death anxiety. Becker clearly laid out these ideas; the worm at the core details them and provides empirical evidence for them.

THE FOURTH TURNING (THE ‘CRISIS’ PHASE)
It may have been better to separate these essays into two parts. As I was thinking about writing these, I realized that they are connected in so many ways that I felt compelled to join them in one essay. I think you’ll see what I mean.

The authors, William Strauss and Neil Howe, wrote a book in 1997 called, “The Fourth Turning; An American Prophecy—What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny".

Looking back to the dawn of the modern world, The Fourth Turning reveals a distinct pattern in human history—cycles lasting about the length of a long human life, about 80-90 years. Each cycle is composed of four “turnings,” and each turning lasts the span of a generation (about 20 years). There are four kinds of turnings: High, Awakening, Unraveling, and Crisis, and they always occur in the same order. (from The Fourth Turning site).

In a nutshell, this book is about how the cycles of history (at least in American history) repeat themselves about every 80–90 years. There are “turnings” about every 20–25 years—four of them in each cycle. If you start with the American Revolution (1775), then the American Civil War (1861), The Great Depression, and World War 2 (1942), that leaves you sitting here in 2022, in the middle of the “crisis” era. These are all about 80-90 years apart. According to Howe, this crisis period will last until about 2030. After that, we’ll gradually enter a “high” period again. These “turnings” are like the seasons; spring, summer, autumn, and winter. We’re in the winter phase.

This is a fascinating concept, and our history tends to show its validity. There are some difficult turnings within the overall cycle. It seems we’re in one of those today. In fact, I would argue that we are. The good news is that in times of "crisis,” turning, historically, we’ve done some incredible things. The social security programs were all created in the 1930s—the depression era—as well as the American Civil War, which brought us the establishment of public education. There are some good things that come from it. There are also some very terrible things that come from these turnings.

In my opinion, death anxiety and these turnings are directly related. They sit together well. In fact, I would say they complement one another if I could use that term. Think of it as individuals acting out, or on, our immortality projects, and collectively, acting out, or on, the turnings in the generation we belong to; i.e., Boomers, Gen X, Millenials, etc. This makes a lot of sense to me. I can clearly see the death denial theories tying into the cycles of history. They provide different types of immortality projects for people of different generations and times, but it still comes back to the fact that death anxiety motivates these desires.

I would recommend reading the book or even watching some YouTube videos on the topic. It will really give you something to think about. It’s not religious prophecy or prophets, or anything like that. It’s based on the history of this country and the patterns that stand out. Almost undeniable. If this is, in fact, correct, we’re in for some rough waters ahead as a country and people. Forewarned is forearmed.

"Fourth turnings almost always end in total war." Neil Howe

Western Goat’s Beard - a photogenic drawing - No. 2

Western Goat’s Beard - a Palladiotype print from a wet collodion negative.

Turtles All The Way Down - The Song And The Print

“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life.” - William Faulkner, The Paris Review, 1956

TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN
The print is a photogenic drawing of the pigweed plant. These are “one-off” direct contact prints—kind of like an Ambrotype or Tintype. The plant was laid on top of a piece of paper that I salted (ammonium chloride) and sensitized with silver nitrate. I put the paper and plant out in the sun for about 3-4 minutes. I washed the print (removing the free silver), toned the print (with palladium toner), fixed the print, and washed it. That’s it. I’ll do more of these in the future. They are special in that the actual object is in contact with the paper. The void is what makes the print. A lot to talk about there, philosophically speaking.

When I removed the plant from the paper, all of a sudden I had thoughts of the song, “Turtles All The Way Down.” The lyrics jumped right to the forefront of my mind. It was strange and powerful. Thoughts of near-death experiences came to mind as well. There were words like “universe” and “big bang,” all in this tiny little plant. It seemed to hold all of it and express it so beautifully in this print. The seeds that fell off onto the paper were a powerful reminder about life and death too.

Turtles all the way down is also the title of a book by John Green. He wrote “The Fault In Our Stars” and “Paper Towns.” I haven’t read it, but from my understanding, it’s about a young woman and her struggle with mental health issues. Anxiety and OCD. She’s trying to solve a mystery about a billionaire.

So where did the title spring from? “Turtles all the way down” is an old phrase that was used as a rebuttal for the existence of God. In his book, “A Brief History of Time,” Stephen Hawking describes its origin: The well-known scientist Bertrand Russell once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: ‘What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.’ The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, ‘What is the tortoise standing on?’ “You’re very clever, young man, very clever,” said the old lady. ‘But it’s turtles all the way down!’

The idea is really rooted in infinite regress. The definition is, “a sequence of reasoning or justification which can never come to an end.” It’s about infinity, something that we can’t comprehend, and if we think we can, we’re delusional.

The specific lyrics that came to mind in reference to the print:

“I've seen Jesus play with flames
In a lake of fire that I was standing in….

Met Buddha yet another time
And he showed me a glowing light within…

There's a gateway in our minds
That leads somewhere out there, far beyond this plane
Where reptile aliens made of light
Cut you open and pull out all your pain..,”

The song really touched me when I first heard it. I couldn’t believe the lyrics: country music gone psychedelic. In this song, there’s no beer, bars, or women that left him. The pro-psychedelic position really made me pay attention. I think they (psychedelics) have a great future in the treatment of certain mental health issues. Anyway, listen to the song, and read the lyrics-it’s posted below.

The Psychology of "Othering" and Book Ideas

“What you’re trying to create is a certain kind of indispensable presence, where your position in the narrative is not contingent on whether somebody likes you, or somebody knows you, or somebody’s a friend, or somebody’s being generous to you.”- Kerry James Marshall, NPR News, 2017

THE BOOK

I’ve decided to publish a book on this work. The title and subtitle will read, "In the Shadow of Sun Mountain – The Psychology of "Othering." That’s probably not a surprise to a lot of you, but I wanted to share the news.

This will be one way of putting the work out there. There will be other projects to accomplish this as well. Since most people will never see the work in person (an exhibition), and since the book will have more images than an exhibition, this is the most efficient way to get these images and ideas to the masses or the few that are interested in it. And there will be a substantial amount of writing that I could never get to communicate in a gallery setting. If people take the time to read it, they will really understand what I’m trying to do with the work.

I’m not sure when this will be published. It will probably be at the end of 2023 or the beginning of 2024. It will be a hardcover and, so far, it looks to be about 200+ pages. Quite the tome for a “photobook.” It’s not really just a photobook, though. I want to transcend that a bit and give some in-depth reasoning, philosophy, and “behind-the-scenes” stories about the work. I’m leaning heavily on Becker and Solomon for this. It will be scholarly in that sense, for sure.

The book will concentrate on the history of "othering" but will also shed light on current events. Humans simply repeat history. The images are cradled in the lives of the Ute-Tabeguache of Colorado—my home. But the concept will go even beyond that. It will be broken down into four sections; the introduction and artist’s statement; landscapes, flora, and fauna; objects, and symbols. The book will have between 15 and 20 essays on various topics related to history, psychology, and my experience making the work. I’m repurposing some of the writing that I’ve published here. The essays will be edited and polished up a bit for the book.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF “OTHERING”

I’ve always had a preoccupation with the psychology of "othering." I’ve been talking about it and asking questions about marginalized communities and our treatment of them for over two decades, maybe even longer. I’ve made several bodies of photographic work on this topic too.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve wondered why people group up and make everything "us and them." They will argue and fight about anything and everything. And I mean everything; sports teams, geography, professions, politics, Facebook groups, religion, gender, etcetera.

I’m guilty of it too. I feel the feelings and think the thoughts like everyone else. I suppose the difference is that I realize when I’m doing it and I’ve never taken it to extremes—at least I hope I haven’t.

I've always been aware of my thoughts about differences. I believe that’s where my questions originated. I’m always willing to have a rational and reasonable discussion about them, whether they’re real or perceived. I don’t think we can ever not have these feelings and thoughts; we’re built this way. It’s baked into our death anxiety condition—and it’s a powerful buffer we cling to for security and self-esteem.

That’s why Ernest Becker’s writing is so potent for me. He was able to answer questions that I’d been struggling with for 30 years or longer. He clearly laid out the human condition, and there’s not much room for argument. His theories are solid. Sheldon Solomon and his crew put his theories to the test—the literal test. And they panned out. Read “The Worm At The Core: The Role Of Death In Life” it will make you a believer. It is what it is, whether we like it or not, understand it or not, or agree with it or not. That’s where we are.

His books have had such an influence on me; it’s really pushed my (photographic) work in a different direction. I’m primarily a portrait photographer and artist. I would normally have people in front of my camera. Not anymore. Based on his theories of the denial of death, Becker gave me insight into making work that was both abstract and impactful, sitting together with these ideas. If you look through the work and study it, you’ll find what I’m talking about. For me, it’s Becker’s theories visualized.

The big problems come when people rationalize their "othering"—they justify it and not only make it okay, they think it’s their "duty to stand up for what’s right." I’m sure you’ve seen examples of this recently. I could list several just in the past week alone, everything from mass shootings to anti-mask people freaking out at school board meetings and many more.

It’s beyond worrisome at this point. When I feel emotional about it, I simply refer to Becker’s words. I understand why it’s happening, and that seems to calm me down. Knowledge is power. Plato said, "The true lover of knowledge naturally strives for truth and is not content with common opinion, but soars with undimmed and unwearied passion till he grasps the essential nature of things." That’s always been my goal, especially now.

My book will be a story of "othering." A specific story about the Ute/Tabeguache that once lived where I live now. It will be an artistic and psychological trip into the “why.” It will explain, as best I can translate, Becker and Solomon's reasons behind the genocide of Indigenous peoples. I see the pictures as the residue, if you will, or reminders of the past. For me, they hold both the beauty and the tragedy of the people and the place. I hope they will evoke emotions and feelings in the viewer. And I hope the written portion gives some answers or explanations about all of it, past and present.

At the end of the day, my goal is to add to the long list of people who have tried to shed light on human behavior, to make people aware of the unconscious, and to plead for change—real personal change. One of Becker’s hopes was that everyone understood his theories. Just the fact of knowing about this can help bring about change—one person at a time. I know this is too much to ask. It's not realistic. But I can still hope.

I’ll close this essay with some positive words. And maybe, in some abstract way, some answers to the mortality salience problem—the death anxiety problem.

Every day, I try my best to do the following: Be grateful for everything. Be happy to be alive. Be in awe of life—of living and of nature. And try to be humble. Not in a self-deprecating way, but in a modest, unpretentious, unassuming way. Share the good things that you have to offer the world. And find meaning and significance in the things you love to do.

These are big asks in our world of social media (siloed lives), our drive for wealth and fame, and our desire to “stand out” and compete with the world. I’ve heard Sheldon Solomon recommend pursuing noble attributes (previous paragraph). They may bring some relief to your existential crisis, and your death anxiety.

Mockup idea #2

Mockup idea #3:

I’m thrilled with this picture (a photogenic drawing of pigweed). When I saw it after I pulled the plant from the paper, I was beside myself. It reminds me of this song I recently heard. It’s called “Turtles All The Way Down,” by Sturgill Simpson. I listen to a wide variety of music; no genre is off-limits to me. As far as country music goes, normally I would go for the older stuff like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Geoge Jones, Tammy Wynette, etc.

Lately, I’ve been listening to him (Sturgill Simpson), and I like a lot of his music. He’s a great storyteller. I couldn’t believe the lyrics when I first heard the song (“Turtles All The Way Down”). He talks about psychedelics and how they’ve changed him. And he comes down hard on organized religion. I’m familiar with the Bertrand Russell story of turtles all the way down and have read Stephen Hawking’s book, “A Brief History of Time,” where he tells that story as a rebuttal to the existence of God. It’s really about infinite regress. But I digress. I’ll write an essay about it. I think people might find it interesting. This image reminds me of these lyrics in the song:

“I've seen Jesus play with flames
In a lake of fire that I was standing in….

There's a gateway in our minds
That leads somewhere out there, far beyond this plane
Where reptile aliens made of light
Cut you open and pull out all your pain..,”

The Birth and Death of Meaning & Photogenic Drawings

AMARANTHUS RETROFLEXUS (PIGWEED)—a Kallitype print from a wet collodion negative.

THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF MEANING
Ernest Becker was a cultural anthropologist. He's best known for his death-centric perspective on human psychology. He’s also known for eliciting the creation of the Terror Management Theory (TMT). He died in 1974.

He wrote several books in his lifetime. “The Denial of Death” was the first book of his I read. In this book, Becker builds on the works of Søren Kierkegaard, Sigmund Freud, Norman O. Brown, and Otto Rank to discuss the psychological and philosophical implications of how people and cultures have reacted to the concept of death.

The three most potent books for me are “The Denial of Death” (Pulitzer Prize 1974), “The Birth and Death of Meaning,” and “Escape from Evil.” Together, they provide insight into human behavior that changed my view of what it means to live and the meaning of, and in, life. These theories have also answered profound questions about my pursuit of making art. I always tell people that these books are life-altering. And that’s not an exaggeration. As they say, once you leave the cave, you can never go back in.

MEANING. SIGNIFICANCE. TRANSCENDENCE.
In chapter nine of his book, “The Birth and Death of Meaning,” Becker talks about self-esteem. I’m willing to bet that your definition of self-esteem is not how Becker defines it.

THE NATURE AND FUNCTION OF SELF-ESTEEM
William James wrote about self-esteem in the late 19th century. He said that self-esteem is based on two elements: our actual achievements and our aspirations. Becker was well aware of his theories and took them a step further. Why is it that human beings need to feel good about themselves? According to Becker, self-esteem is a death anxiety buffer. What are the sources of self-esteem? Primarily, we get our self-esteem from our culture. Becker calls it our “cultural worldview.” A good culture will have many different ways that a person can find their self-esteem. Cultures that don’t provide opportunities for self-esteem have major problems. People will suffer from depression, anxiety, and all kinds of mental health problems.

WHY HAVE PEOPLE HISTORICALLY BEEN UNABLE TO GET ALONG WITH PEOPLE WHO ARE DIFFERENT FROM THEM?
This is the second question Becker seemed preoccupied with. He talks about colonizers using methods to strip culture from native or indigenous people. Once they lose their self-esteem, they are easy to dominate. These are methods used by all colonizers. Everyone needs culture to provide them with self-esteem or ways to acquire self-esteem. If that is removed, the people will have a hard time not assimilating to the colonizers’ ways.

I’ll do an essay on the book. “The Worm at the Core: The Role of Death in Life,” but wanted to share this excerpt about self-esteem. “If there were any doubt that self-esteem is the dominant [human] motive... there would be one sure way to dispel it,” Ernest Becker wrote, “and that would be by showing that when people do not have self-esteem they cannot act, they break down.” What makes it difficult to acquire and maintain self-esteem? And what happens when self-esteem is lacking?

There are two main ways self-esteem can break down. First, individuals, or groups of people, can lose faith in their cultural worldviews. Such disillusionment can be precipitated by economic upheaval, technological and scientific innovations, environmental catastrophes, wars, plagues, or unwelcome intrusions by other cultures. For example, before the arrival of the first Europeans, the Yup’ik people of Alaska belonged to a thriving culture ruled by deep customs, traditions, and spiritual beliefs. Their tribal and individual codes of conduct were defined by what they called the Yuuyaraq (“the way of being a human being”), which told each member how to behave in any situation. When the Europeans—carrying guns, germs, and steel that killed a majority of the population—imposed their Christian worldviews on the Yup’ik, the aboriginal people lost their identity. The medicine men grew ill and died, and with them the ancient spirit of the Eskimo and the code of Yuuyaraq. Everything the Yup’ik had believed in failed, and their whole world collapsed.

Such catastrophes occurred all over the world where indigenous cultures were subject to colonization. But other circumstances can erode faith in a cultural belief system as well. Even the United States may be in the midst of such erosion in the wake of economic uncertainty, church and sports scandals, and political polarization. As of this writing, seven in ten Americans believe that the country is on the wrong track; eight in ten don’t agree with the way the nation is being governed. Church attendance, even in as strongly religious a country as the United States, has steadily declined. Public schools, particularly in urban areas, are in disarray. “We have lost our gods,” Laura Hansen, a sociologist at Western New England University, told reporters for The Atlantic. “We lost [faith] in the media: Remember Walter Cronkite? We lost it in our culture: You can’t point to a movie star who might inspire us, because we know too much about them. We lost it in politics because we know too much about their lives. We’ve lost it—that basic sense of trust and confidence—in everything.”

When people lose confidence in their core beliefs, they become literally “dis-illusioned” because they lack a functional blueprint of reality. Without such a map, there is no basis for determining what behaviors are appropriate or desirable, leaving no way to plot a course to self-esteem. (The Worm at the Core: The Role of Death in Life: Page 44-45)

Medicinal plant—a photogenic drawing. Teller County, Colorado

The Great Mullein (leaf)—a photogenic drawing. Teller County, Colorado

Meadow Barley—a photogenic drawing. Teller County, Colorado

“Meadow Barley”—a Palladiotype print from a wet collodion negative.

BLUE GRAMA GRASS—a photogenic drawing. (the glass on the contact printing frame broke during the exposure, hence the “lines”)

It can be ground into a powder, mixed with water, and eaten as a mush, often with corn meal. It is also used to make bread. It is also an important food for mule deer, elk, and bison, all of which the Ute/Tabeguache hunted and relied on for food, shelter, and tools.

Blue Grama Grass—a Palladiotype print from a wet collodion negative.

Fringed Sage—a photogenic drawing. Teller County, Colorado

Fringed Sage (detail)—a photogenic drawing. Teller County, Colorado

Fringed Sage - Palldiotype

The Imperfect In Art: The Pinnacle of Beauty & Meaning

“What art is, in reality, is the missing link, not the links which exist. It’s not what you see that is art; art is the gap.” -Marcel Duchamp, 1975

I know this is probably an old and tired topic for some of you. Hang with me for a minute. I’d like to try and add something new to this philosophy as it applies to art and photography.

Almost everyone in the art world has heard of the Japanese word (or is it words?) wabi-sabi. It’s most commonly used as a platitude for justifying bad art. That’s not what it means. It has a deeper, richer, and more enlightening purpose. And I believe it’s directly connected to the denial of death and death anxiety.

Wabi-sabi is a worldview that is centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. In fact, it finds the pinnacle of beauty and meaning in both. I see this philosophy as a death anxiety buffer. And it’s a very good one to employ in your life and art. Thinking deeply about our animality and our imperfection will allow us to come to terms with our fate. Albert Camus said, “There is only one liberty, to come to terms with death; thereafter, anything is possible.” I believe this is at the core of the Wabi-sabi philosophy.

The philosophy consists of these ideas: nothing is permanent, nothing is perfect, and nothing is complete. Sit with those for a minute. Allow them to seep in. If you live in the digital photography world today, or even the film world, you are bombarded with technology to make your photographs better, even perfect. As humans, we strive for perfection, which is never attainable. We want sharp focus, clean surfaces, amazing composition, and flawless light. We even want big, huge prints (physical). Everything we’ve learned about what’s important in photography is based on concepts that are exactly the opposite of wabi-sabi. That in and of itself should speak volumes to us.

“Plate #121, Bullet Holes & Feathers”-Whole Plate Palladiotype from a wet collodion negative.

As I said in the second paragraph of this essay, I believe we do this because of our denial of death. I can easily argue for that position. The desire for perfection staves off the anxiety of impermanence. We find comfort in the perceived permanence of our (archival) images. We symbolically live beyond our physical selves. Perceived perfection is achieved by the use of technology to meet cultural expectations for what the world wants, like size, sharpness, etc. And finally, completeness. Answering all of the questions both visually and philosophically as we understand them from our cultural worldview requires a kind of certitude that doesn’t really exist. We literally fool ourselves, albeit unconsciously, about what we’re doing and why. The point of all of this is to build self-esteem (to find meaning and significance in our culture), which in turn, quells our anxiety about our mortality.

Let’s talk about content as it applies to the denial of death. Have you ever seen portraits of young naked women? Have you seen luxurious scenes of wealth and affluence? Perfect prints of El Capitan or Yosemite Park? A beautiful, perfect rose or flower? Any image that shows perfection, youth, power, and strength can be directly connected to Ernest Becker’s theories on the human condition and is in direct opposition to the philosophy of wabi-sabi.

These images exist and are “popular” because they shield us from death anxiety. When I post a picture of a dying plant, a blurry portrait of a horse with poor composition, or a landscape where genocide occurred, it gives the viewer pause. The reason for this is that this kind of content acts as a death reminder; it unconsciously raises the dander (if you will) in the viewer and reminds them of their mortality. Their death anxiety is moved from a shielded place, safely out of range, to the forefront of their (subconscious) minds. And they may not even be aware of it.

I might argue that these kinds of images are not beautiful, they’re not ideal, and they’re not made to celebrate life. They are made to mask what is real. They’re made to make us hide behind an illusion that we’ll live forever, that death has no hold or power over us. They’re fake and fraudulent in the most direct ways.

Does all of this mean that you should break all of the “rules” in photography? Yes, it does. Or at least try to refrain from them having such a grip on you that you can never make pictures that are “good” enough. Allow the viewer to feel the work as much as they see it. I would recommend being open to imperfections that support your narrative. After all, they represent your own human imperfections. There is beauty in that. We resist and unconsciously dislike anything that represents our animality. Becker called us “gods with anuses." What an accurate description of how we think and what we deny.

“White Horse-Teller County, Colorado”-Whole Plate toned Cyanotype from a Calotype (paper negative).

In "Escape from Evil," Becker said, “Man is an animal who has to live in a lie in order to live at all.” He goes on to say in his book, “The Denial of Death,” “The real world is simply too terrible to admit. It tells man that he is a small trembling animal who will someday decay and die. Culture changes all of this, makes man seem important and vital to the universe. immortal in some ways.” And finally, "The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity—designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny of man."

This is a difficult concept to process, let alone be aware of—it feels counterintuitive, or maybe even that it’s not applicable to you. Yet it is very true as you come to realize how these ideas sit together in the reality of your life, and they are all applicable to every human being.

If we step back and objectively look at how we live, what we think, and how we behave (see Socrates and self-examination), we’ll quickly realize that we have a distorted view of life and living. If we pick bad illusions or immortality projects, we can end up doing a lot of damage to humanity. However, if we try to come to terms with our death (see Camus quote above) and our imperfections, even celebrate them in our art and life, I think we’ll have a better, or healthier (psychologically speaking), view of our life and our death. In the end, we’ll make better art, and moreover, we’ll have empathy and compassion for others’ imperfections; think wabi-sabi and find beauty and meaning in the imperfect. After all, that’s who we are.