A Question To Contemplate

Question: What if we didn't know we were going to die?

I've been wrestling with this question for a while now. I’m sitting in my studio surrounded by my large-format cameras, lenses, and half-finished canvases, drawings, and pieces of ideas, feeling the persistent hum of mortality that seems to drive every mark I make and every plate I expose.

Becker wrote about our knowledge of death as the fundamental human condition—the thing that separates us from every other creature on this planet. But what if that knowledge simply wasn't there? Like your dog sprawled in the afternoon sun, or your cat stalking a shadow, or a lion moving through the African grasslands. They have no concept that they're finite beings. All they know is the immediate drive to survive and reproduce (and we have that too).

Imagine it. Really imagine it. You wake up tomorrow with no concept that your body will one day stop working, that your consciousness will end, that there's a finite number of sunrises ahead of you. How would you move through the world? What would the world look like?

I think about my own creative practice, how much of it is driven by the need to leave something behind to create meaning in the face of the void. Would I still feel that urgent pull to the canvas and the darkroom if death weren't whispering over my shoulder? Would any of us create anything at all?

Consider this: Would we still build monuments? The pyramids exist because pharaohs knew they would die and wanted to transcend that fate. Would we have cathedrals, symphonies, novels—these desperate attempts to touch immortality through art? Or would we live in a world of immediate gratification, where nothing needed to outlast us because we couldn't conceive of not lasting?

Think about love, too. So much of our romantic intensity comes from knowing our time together is limited. "Till death do us part" only has meaning because we understand death exists. Would we love as fiercely if we believed we had infinite time with someone? Would we love at all, or would relationships become casual arrangements since there'd be no urgency, no preciousness born from scarcity?

What about progress? Every scientific breakthrough, every medical advance, every technological leap forward—aren't these all responses to our limitations, including our ultimate limitation of mortality? We cure diseases because we fear death. We explore space because we dream of transcending our earthly expiration date. We pass knowledge to our children because we know we won't be here forever to guide them.

Without death consciousness, would we become a species of eternal children, living only in the present moment like animals do? There'd be no anxiety about wasting time because we wouldn't understand that time could be wasted. No existential dread, no midnight terrors, no desperate searches for meaning. But also no urgency, no drive to become more than we are.

I keep coming back to this in my work. Every painting I create carries within it the knowledge that both the artist and the viewer will someday be gone. That tension between permanence and impermanence—it's what gives art its power. Strip away death awareness, and do we lose the very thing that makes us human?

But here's what really haunts me: Would we be happier? Becker argued that our knowledge of death creates neurosis, depression, and the endless search for ways to deny our mortality through heroism and meaning-making. Without that knowledge, would we live in a state of pure being, untroubled by the existential weight that crushes so many of us?

Or would something else emerge to fill that void? Some other awareness, some other source of meaning and motivation that we can't even imagine because death looms so large in our current consciousness?

I want to hear from you. Sit with this question for a moment. Let it unsettle you the way it's unsettled me.

What do you think would change? What would we lose? What might we gain?

Would art exist without death anxiety driving it? Would you have the same intensity? Would we still reach for the stars, or would we be content to never leave the ground?

Share your thoughts. Challenge my assumptions. Push this question further than I have. Because if there's one thing I've learned in exploring these ideas, it's that the most profound questions are meant to be wrestled with together, not solved in isolation.

What would we become if we didn't know we were going to die?

Giving A Print With Every Book

A Gift with Every Book: A Signed “Deer Antlers” Print

I’ve decided to include a special gift with every copy of In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: a fine art print (copy) of Deer Antlers. You’ll find the original image on page 234 of the book—and it’s also the cover image. The original is a palladium print from a whole-plate wet collodion negative.

Let me be clear: this isn’t a palladium print. It’s a high-quality book print. It’s printed on 300-pound paper, produced by Mixam (the same company that printed the book). It’s an 8” x 10” print. That said, I was genuinely impressed when I saw the final result. The tones, the texture, the presence—it surprised me. It’s not the original, but it holds up.

The image means a lot to me personally. The antlers were found on my property in Colorado. The vessel they rest in was crafted by Ute artist L. Posey. But beyond that, the image carries a deeper symbolic weight in the context of the book.

Peter Wessel Zapffe’s essay The Last Messiah tells the story of a prehistoric giant elk whose antlers grew so massive, they ultimately pinned its head to the ground—leading to the species’ extinction. Zapffe saw the animal as a metaphor for human consciousness: our awareness of death, our tragic over-evolution of mind. The antlers became too heavy to carry.

That’s what this image is about. You’ll read more about it in the book.

So, with every book, you’ll get this print—a small artifact tied to a larger meditation on memory, death, and what it means to live with the knowledge of our own ending.

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...

Ocotillo

I think this painting speaks beautifully to themes of mortality and resilience—the red buds almost seem to burn against the chaotic background (ocotillo is sometimes translated as “torch made of pine”). It's reminiscent of how creativity itself can be a form of rebellion against death consciousness. The way the ocotillo reaches upward with those flame-like blooms feels like a perfect visual metaphor for transcending mortality through creative expression. The desert holds so much beauty and inspiration.

Last night we were blessed with our first real storm of the year—thunder and lightning (very, very frightening, as the song goes). It woke me up, and I got up and watched the roof scuppers gush water. It was a beautiful sight. My rain gauge registered almost a quarter inch, and you can practically feel the desert exhaling in gratitude. It's fascinating how the landscape transforms after rainfall, how plants and creatures emerge from their dormancy with such urgency.

The ocotillos caught my attention the other day. Those stark branches suddenly crowned with fiery red blooms—what perfect symbols of life's persistence in harsh conditions. I pulled out this 30" x 40" canvas and simply had a go at capturing that defiance.

Looking at this piece now, I'm considering a few final touches: perhaps more definition in the lower background where the blues and greens transition, maybe strengthening the shadow beneath the ocotillo to ground it more firmly in space, and possibly enhancing some of the textural elements in the background to frame the central image more deliberately. I’m not sure I’ll do anything - just thinking out loud.

My approach to making art has changed radically over these past years. I'm less fixated on outcomes now, more immersed in process. What fascinates me is becoming conscious of my sublimation—watching my thought processes unfold as I create. This phenomenon seems connected to Becker's ideas about creative work as an immortality project, a way of managing our death anxiety through meaningful production.

The medium doesn't seem to matter much anymore. Whether I'm photographing, painting, or writing, the fundamental experience feels remarkably similar—this conversation between mortality consciousness and creative response. The ocotillo, with its torch-like blooms emerging from seemingly dead branches after rain, feels like the perfect visual metaphor for this dialogue between death and creation.

Thinking About Doctoral Studies and V.2 Automatic Fantastic

THINKING ABOUT THE DOCTORAL STUDIES PROGRAM

Starting a doctoral program is a strange thing—part intellectual pursuit, part personal reckoning. You don’t just show up to study something interesting; you’re expected to bring something new into the world. The whole premise of a PhD is to explore uncharted terrain—to contribute original thought to a field that matters to you.

That’s not as simple as it sounds. Academia doesn’t reward echo chambers. You need a question that hasn't been fully asked yet, or at least not asked in your way. For me, that means going deeper into what I’ve already spent years wrestling with: mortality, creativity, and the human need to matter in the face of death.

As I write this today, my thesis is rooted in the importance of creativity—not as a luxury, but as a lifeline. Specifically, I’m exploring how artists navigate the awareness of death and the existential tension it creates. What does it mean to make something—anything—while knowing you're impermanent? Does that act of creation actually change anything? Does it soothe, disrupt, clarify? And if it does… how?

These are the questions that pull at me. They’re not abstract. I’ve lived them. I’ve applied these ideas to my own creative process for years, using photography and painting as a way to wrestle with grief, memory, and the inevitability of death. What I’m after now is a deeper understanding—not just for myself, but for others who feel the same pull toward making meaning in a world that guarantees our disappearance.

The doctoral program I’ve joined refers to this early vision as a “vision seed.” I like that. Seeds hold potential. They require care, patience, and the right conditions to grow. My vision seed is simple: I want to ask new questions at the intersection of art, psychology, and philosophy. I want to know what happens when creatives become fully conscious of the existential work their art is doing—when they no longer sublimate unconsciously but engage directly with mortality through the act of making.

If I can shape this into something useful, I hope to produce a thesis that not only contributes to the academic conversation but also encourages a more vital, creative, and psychologically honest way of living. Ideally, this research becomes the foundation for a university course—something like Creativity and Mortality: Confronting the Void Through Art. A course for artists, therapists, and seekers. For anyone brave enough to stop looking away.

Maybe it’s a workshop. Maybe it’s a lecture series. Maybe it's something entirely new—a space where art becomes both expression and inquiry, where mortality isn’t denied but invited into the room. Either way, this is the path I’m on. And for the first time in a long while, it feels like the right one.

AUTOMATIC FANTASTIC V.2
I wasn’t finished with this painting yesterday - I kind of knew that but wanted to think about it. I think this piece perfectly embodies what Becker would call our "immortality project"—the desperate creative act against the void. The black textured background creates this sense of cosmic darkness, the kind we all fear when contemplating non-existence. The twin red-orange circles with their dripping streaks remind me of weeping eyes, like the piece itself is crying out against its own mortality.

The scratched and chaotic surface texture feels like my own anxious mind trying to make order from disorder. Isn't that what we're all doing? Creating meaning through art to ward off death anxiety? The stark contrast between the vibrant orange-red and the textured black background creates this visceral tension - life against death, consciousness against oblivion.

There's something primal here that connects to what Terror Management Theory suggests about our symbolic defenses against mortality. The almost face-like quality emerging from the blackness speaks to me of the self trying to assert itself against nothingness. The dripping paint suggests impermanence, yet the work itself stands as a defiant act of creation.

This piece doesn't just represent death anxiety - it performs it through its very existence. As an artist, I'm not just depicting mortality; I'm actively negotiating with it, creating something that might outlast my physical self. Isn't that what separates artistic creation from other forms of death denial? We don't just distract ourselves from death - we transform our relationship with it.

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.

You're Neurotic: How Neurotic Are You?

There’s no question—you’re neurotic. We all are, at least to some degree. It's a spectrum; the real question is, how neurotic are you?

If you’re a creative type, odds are you lean a little heavier on that scale than most. Artists tend to feel things more deeply—they’re more sensitive to emotional undercurrents, more affected by loss, conflict, absurdity, and even silence. That kind of heightened awareness can become a burden. And for many, it leads to withdrawal. You’re not interested in small talk or cocktail parties. You’d rather sit with the ache of things than skim the surface.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “Yeah, that’s me,” that’s not a flaw. It’s just a truth. But here’s the catch—if you don’t have some kind of creative outlet, some way to metabolize that existential weight, life can get pretty dark. Neuroticism without expression is a slow bleed. Creativity is what keeps it from turning into despair.

My work is centered around how artists manage neuroticism, especially the mainspring of it—the fear of not existing anymore. It’s the implications of death that concern us, not really death itself (although for some, the death part is a big deal). What are the implications? The question revolves around meaning and significance. Was my life meaningful? Did I matter? Have I made any difference? Will I be remembered?

These aren’t casual questions. They sit under the surface of everything we do. For artists, they show up in the studio, in the darkroom, in the act of making. The work becomes a kind of wrestling match with invisibility. We create not just to be seen, but to prove—to ourselves, maybe more than anyone else—that we were here. That this inner world we carry meant something.

I believe creative work is one of the few ways to confront the void without collapsing into it. It gives form to the formless, voice to the silence. It’s not therapy, exactly—but it is a kind of existential hygiene. A way of making peace, if not with death itself, then with the tremors it sends through a conscious life.

“Rank asked why the artist so often avoids clinical neurosis when he is so much a candidate for it because of his vivid imagination, his openness to the finest and broadest aspects of experience, his isolation from the cultural worldview that satisfies everyone else. The answer is that he takes in the world, but instead of being oppressed by it, he reworks it in his own personality and recreates it in the work of art. The neurotic is precisely the one who cannot create—the “artiste-manque,” as Rank so aptly called him. We might say that both the artist and the neurotic bite off more than they can chew, but the artist spews it back out again and chews it over in an objectified way, as an ex­ternal, active work project. The neurotic can’t marshal this creative response embodied in a specific work, and so he chokes on his in­troversions. The artist has similar large-scale introversions, but he uses them as material.” Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

The main point of my book is about this. It’s about my personal experience as an artist and how that has affected my relationship with death. There is no doubt artists cope with death anxiety in a different way. The problem is how neurotic they are, how extreme they are when it comes to their inability to deal with existential problems. The non-creative person, or as Rank called them, the artiste manqué, has no chance to resolve their issues through an external process. You can witness this every day in the world. Creative types have a chance to transform the anxiety into something interesting or beautiful. The problem is that they need to be conscious of the process for it to work well.

That’s the real paradox: the gift is there, but if you don’t realize what you’re doing—if you’re not aware that your art is a kind of transmutation of death anxiety—then the process can still collapse in on itself. You can end up consumed by the very thing you’re trying to escape. The work might get made, but it won't heal. It won’t clarify. It won’t liberate. And it definitely won’t confront mortality.

Becker, Rank, even Kierkegaard—they all understood that some kind of creative striving was essential. Not just as expression, but as salvation. But it has to be done with eyes open. That’s what I’m arguing. That consciousness is the key—not just of death, but of the internal machinery we build to cope with it. Otherwise, even the most beautiful art can become another mask. Another form of denial.

What a 19th-Century Photograph Reveals About Power, Privilege and Violence in the American West

Martha A. Sandweiss's The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West delves into a single 1868 photograph taken at Fort Laramie. In this image, six federal peace commissioners are posed with a young Native American girl, whose identity was long forgotten. While the men are named, the girl remained anonymous until Sandweiss's meticulous research identified her as Sophie Mousseau.

Sandweiss uses this photograph as a lens to explore the intertwined lives of its subjects and the broader context of westward expansion during the Reconstruction era. She examines the roles of figures like Alexander Gardner, the photographer known for his Civil War images; William S. Harney, a Union general with a violent reputation among the Lakota; and Samuel F. Tappan, an abolitionist involved in investigating the Sand Creek massacre.​

The narrative brings to light Sophie's life, marked by personal hardships and the systemic challenges faced by Native Americans as settlers encroached upon their lands and the federal government enforced reservation policies. Through this focused historical inquiry, Sandweiss not only recovers a lost individual story but also offers a profound reflection on how history is recorded and remembered.​

From The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West by Martha A. Sandweiss. Copyright © 2025. Available from Princeton University Press.

Martha A. Sandweiss's The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West posits that by uncovering the identity and life story of Sophie Mousseau—the unnamed Native girl in an 1868 photograph—we can challenge and enrich the conventional narratives of the American West. Sandweiss argues that this single image, often overlooked, encapsulates the complexities of westward expansion, highlighting the intertwined lives of individuals from disparate backgrounds during a transformative period in American history. By bringing Sophie's story to the forefront, the book emphasizes the importance of recognizing marginalized voices to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the past.

This book deals directly with what I’ve been working on for years. This book highlights the blatant instances of othering and TMT. The abuse and marginalization of the Native Americans was, and still is, unreal.

Read the article here.

Update on My Book and Preparing for My Doctoral Studies (PhD Program)

Greetings,

I hope this post finds you in good health and good spirits. I know that’s a lot to ask in the world today, but remember gratitude, humility, and awe go a long way to lift your spirits. I try to employ them every day. Happy Spring Equinox, too! It’s warm here. We’re hitting 82F (28C) most days and sunny.

“In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of Othering and the Origins of Evil.” 8” x 10”, 381 pages, seven chapters, and it weighs 3 pounds.

What About My Book?
My book is being printed as I type—the final draft copy anyway. I’ve gone through so many iterations it’s hard to keep track. I can tell you that I’m very happy with the work. In fact, I’m over the moon about it—excited. I hope to include a lot of it in my doctoral studies. I’ll keep you posted when I have copies ready to ship.

Visionary Practice and Regenerative Leadership PhD
I’m preparing to start my PhD work (Visionary Practice and Regenerative Leadership) at Southwestern College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is the ONLY school I would attend to do something like this. Period. It’s a great fit for me. It’s a lot like Goddard College, where I earned my M.F.A. These schools are rare and special.

What is the program, and why am I pursuing a PhD? This is how the school describes it:
This unique transdisciplinary doctoral program is designed to prepare you as a regenerative leader to navigate the complexities of changing the old story of separation, domination, competition, and control into the emerging story of cooperation, compassion, connection, and capacity to regenerate broken social systems and struggling ecosystems. Relationships based on authentic partnership are key to our future. This program responds to the question of ‘how shall we shape these relationships of mutuality in order for individuals, families, and communities to live in good relationship with each other and with the plants, animals, soils, waterways, weather systems, oceans, and atmosphere upon which we depend for our lives?’ Responding to these challenges requires “change agents” capable of honoring wisdom traditions and creating new knowledge to envision and enact a new paradigm.

It begins with these questions: “Do you have a vision?” and “Can your vision make a difference for the world?”

I can see my pursuit clearly in those goals.

I’ve given a lot of thought to this. A couple of months ago, I wasn’t going to do it. And I still have days where I wonder if I should or not. My reasons for doubting have nothing to do with the importance of the work. I feel strongly about that. I feel like I would be contributing something unique and valuable to the world. My concerns have been around funding and what the current government is doing to the DOE and other institutions that I would rely on. However, right now, I’m enrolled and ready to attend my first residency at the end of August. I understand part of it is on a ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico. Does that sound familiar to you? I’ll write more about it later.

I’m going to use my blog as a journal as I go through the program. I think it will help me sort things out and use it as a reference as I go through the program. I have a lot of ideas and am well on my way to making this happen. What I’m hoping to find in the program is a community that I can interact with and expand my ideas. Give me new thoughts, approaches, and information that I don’t currently possess. I have a lot to learn. I know that’s what happened in graduate school (M.F.A.). It was wonderful and very enlightening. I hope for the same here, maybe even more.

What do I hope to accomplish? After reading Ernest Becker’s book in 2018, I discovered why I was making art and why I had the questions I did about human behavior. I've since married the two ideas and feel I have a decent grasp on the intersection of creativity and mortality. In other words, why artists create and how existential art is a powerful buffer against death anxiety. My goal is to show how creative types process and deal with finitude (their impending death) differently than non-creatives. Or at least that’s the question I’m going to address. Keep in mind, this can (and should) radically change over time, but that’s the gist of it.

I think I've found a powerful combination to work with. The interplay between visual art and writing creates a unique space to explore mortality and Becker's theories. Photographs and paintings can capture what words sometimes can't—those abstract, ineffable aspects of confronting mortality. The visual work becomes a direct embodiment of death anxiety and its transformation, while my writing provides the conceptual framework and personal narrative that grounds the experience.

This dual approach seems especially fitting for exploring Becker's ideas. His concepts often deal with the tension between concrete physical reality (our mortal bodies) and symbolic systems of meaning (our immortality projects). My combination of visual art and writing mirrors this tension perfectly—tangible images paired with explanatory text.

The autobiographical element adds another crucial dimension. By documenting my own journey through these philosophical territories, I’m not just theorizing about art as a mortality buffer but demonstrating it in practice. My creative process becomes both the subject and method of the book and my doctoral studies.

By capturing these ceremonial and medicinal (Ute) plants, both alive and after death/going to seed, I’m creating a visual meditation on transformation rather than simple cessation. This connects beautifully to Becker's ideas about death as both an ending and a transition that humans seek to understand through cultural and symbolic frameworks.

The cultural significance of these specific plants adds another layer—these are plants that have been used in healing practices and ceremonies, often related to life transitions. By documenting their living and dead states, I’m tapping into indigenous wisdom about mortality that offers a counterpoint to contemporary death denial.

Meanwhile, my abstract paintings exploring my personal concepts of death—the abyss, chaos, the unknown—provide the subjective, emotional dimension of confronting mortality. The contrast between these approaches is particularly effective, to my mind: the photographs document an observable process in the natural world, while the paintings express the internal, psychological experience of contemplating one's own mortality.

This combination seems especially relevant to Becker's work and Terror Management Theory (TMT). The photographs acknowledge death's reality and place in natural cycles, while the abstract paintings might represent the symbolic systems we create to manage our awareness of that reality.

I begin this August with a six-day residency. This is what the first year looks like (2025-2026):

FALL
VPRL 600 Residency I: Seeking
VPRL 610 Embodied Cosmology
VPRL 620 The Phenomenology of Visionary Practice and the Call to Serve

WINTER
VPRL 630 Traditions of Native American Thought: New Minds and New Worlds
VPRL 640 Regenerative Leadership

SPRING
VPRL 670 Roots & Streams: Finding Your Voice, Clarifying Your Vision, Mapping Your Influences
VPRL 651 Self-Directed Study I

SUMMER
VPRL 660 Introduction to Research Methods: Pathways of Insight
VPRL 681 Self-Directed Study II

My (current) thesis idea: "Transcending Through Creation: The Artist's Existential Advantage in Confronting Mortality."

 Thesis implications: The title suggests a powerful hypothesis: that artists possess unique psychological tools for confronting death anxiety through their creative practice. It indicates my dissertation will explore whether creative individuals have a distinct existential advantage when facing mortality awareness.

I’ve been thinking about the first course, “Embodied Cosmology.” No, it’s not about Tarot cards (LOL!) or astrology. Although it might sound a bit strange if you’re not familiar with the verbiage. Let me explain how I feel about it.

I think about Peter Zapffe’s ideas about “cosmic panic.” Some people stare at the night sky and are exhilarated and engaged—buffering death anxiety with illusions. Some stare at the night sky and see the reality of the indifference and terror of it all.

Artists don't escape the fundamental human condition of mortality—they just develop different mechanisms for confronting it directly.

What distinguishes the artist in this framework isn't an immunity to death anxiety but a willingness to stare longer at the unbearable truth before turning away. Where others might immediately retreat into cultural or religious buffers that deny death's finality, the artist might instead develop practices that allow them to hold mortality awareness in consciousness just long enough to transform it through their work.

This transformation isn't about finding false beauty in terror but about developing the capacity to metabolize terror itself as a raw material for creation. The resulting work doesn't need to be beautiful or comforting—it might be disturbing, challenging, or bleak. What matters is that through the embodied act of creation, the artist has found a way to process mortality awareness without completely surrendering to either denial or paralysis.

In this sense, cosmological embodiment for artists might function not as an escape from Zapffe's cosmic panic but as a unique pathway through it—a method for physically engaging with the knowledge of cosmic indifference and personal extinction that doesn't rely on conventional meaning systems.

The artist's advantage, then, isn't transcending death anxiety but developing more sophisticated and conscious techniques for managing it—techniques that acknowledge the terror rather than disguising it as something else. This allows for moments of clarity about our true position that might be unbearable without the transformative vessel of artistic practice.

This approach offers rich territory for my studies, particularly in examining how my own artistic practice has functioned as a way to metabolize cosmic panic and mortality awareness through physical creative engagement rather than through denial or distraction. This is, in essence, embodied cosmology.

These are the kinds of ideas I’ll be tackling throughout the program.

Arundel Camera Club (Maryland) Talk

Christine and John invited me to give a talk for their camera club. I gave an overview of my new book and shared a few images from it.