Messages from the Lammergeier
Along side my works for the show, Messages from the Lammergeier, I asked people to help create new works.
Thirty strangers placed their handwritten dreams in a copper tray, an offering. By association, the dreams become related. Or they were always kin through their origins in matter.
The same number of people left an object that held meaning for them. Easily overlooked in their simplicity; a feather, a landscape lava rock, a small fig, scraps of paper, the face of Prince as a lapel button. Yet each material thing held the mass of the sun for the individuals who offered them. Some of the objects were left with no note or conversation. I don’t know their meaning, only that they are equally bound to the earth. Are the dreams and objects receptive to our projections or do they reveal their inherent meaning to us when we are open? What needs to be open in order for meaning to be felt?
Abandon and Restraint
I dream of walking alone into nothingness but know I’m not meant to do it alone. I dream of escaping, but it’s never clear what the escape is from. My dream is to be more open. I’m in survival mode too often. I dream of being financially free. I dream every night of a time where I’m fully content with my life, where I wake up next to the love of my life, of no more mental torments. I want to relax, kiss my girlfriend, without fear of losing our house. I dream of bidding on a Georgia O'Keeffe painting. I don’t have that kind of money!
Her paintings are organic, flowing, neither overtly nor subversively sexual, they naturally evoke comfort and desire, flow and ease yet are mysterious enough to sustain attraction. What is the real barrier to experiencing that? We want security before love, or love to be secure so we can totally lose ourselves in it. A contradiction. Are love and security contingent? Is the freedom to be in total emotional free fall possible in life? Is love present in times of suffering? Is it accessible in times of distress? Would love be possible if life were not vulnerable? It is found in both states, and perhaps created in that fluctuation.
Oscillation
Patience in the night… The sun always returns. A group of bats flying at dusk changes to a flock of brilliantly white birds under a blue sky. Both sides of my brain fight for equilibrium and the only middle would be no middle at all. Doubt and certainty flip flopping in my chest. How to know if I’m in the right place. I am either very far in the future or far in the past. A bird’s eye view of endless jungle when only a moment ago I left an inn with a pile of bricks in the backyard. Hayley’s Comet 2061.
The tidal zone where life begins.
Beyond knowing; to sense.
See, touch, hear, taste.
Losing my vision, dreamt once or twice a year. Losing clarity, unable to see yet can sense what is around. No details.I dreamed last night of an organ. Each stop was connected to a specific feeling. The organist could control my feelings just with the push of a button. I know it is you from the way you stand, fold your hands, step up from the picnic table. I wish we could talk. But I know so deeply you are in peace. When I dream of my Haitian grandmother, there are often figs. She died 24 years ago but is still so present. This summer, as I continue to care for and visit my 92 year old mother, she has asked for figs. I wonder if she’s getting ready to see her mom.
Maybe the dream is asking her to “see” with a different vision. Not loss of control but a request to let go of control, to feel for an understanding instead. Vision can be precise but it is one of the senses that is most intercepted by conscious judgment. Feeling is also in the hands, feet, and emotional center. Unable to speak, yet feeling is possible. This is similar to a dream of another friend who’s mother appeared in a dream with her favorite food and left it for her children as she waved goodbye. She died the next week. Every meal is a transformation of life into life. Every bite is an act of participation with existence. The cycle is not complete without the excess, the excrement, which is taken care of by carefully giving over to nature. Letting go.
Letting go
I am a child carrying my step father’s bedpan, I am now an adult, and he looms over me. Again I am carrying his urine, only now it is spilling over the side of the pan. A beckoning voice under the waning moon, a voice called my name, a fake sunrise, lights on, heart pounding. The ones with the biggest hearts have left me. I stand open armed open chested open hearted to a longing that is beyond my ability to hold. I hear moans and cries that erupt from this opening and I am ashes. A small flame burns in my dream, hardly noticed until later. I can see from the mountain top the neighborhood engulfed in flames. I am safe where I observe yet my heart is pounding with the loss of all I love. I thought it was a stupid idea as they could easily shoot us. I decided to go AWOL. Everyone else went and they all died.
Seeing the folly of man, choosing a different path, going solo. Yet everyone dies in the dreams and that loss is felt anyway. We are never apart from others. Somehow the pain of lost love and lack of love is similar when we hold on past the time of transformation. A stronger event forces the change eventually. Are we able to be open to and accept love when it comes back in its next form?
Exposed
God was coming around to each individual, to each revealed the meaning of life. But a spider came closer and closer. While watching the spider out of fear, I missed my secret communion. God had gone on to the next person. All of the seats taken, my hands full, naked, stripped down to the most vulnerable state and everyone looking at me with disdain. Fully helpless and alone. I was so happy I screamed, “Hey! This is Shiva this is Shiva!” I was so happy I had a desire to revere him, then hesitated because I felt looks and judgment from people who knew me, like “Oh really? Is that what you do?” The split I felt was painful, then I stepped forward and revered Shiva. Right there I felt something inside me break through and open up and prevail over shame.Deep flirtatious attraction between two people. Clothes come off, bodies revealed. About to penetrate. I pull back. I fall to my knees. Head hanging. “I am a hairy beast.” He embraces me, lifting me up. He opens up that he has given a lot…too much. I see his muscular- skeletal structure out of balance. I feel fiercely protective of him. I dream of loving my best friend. She doesn’t know how I feel.
Mental or physical attraction leads to extreme vulnerability, acceptance of our imperfections makes for a closer bond than loving the imagined “Perfect One.” Then the protection of the heart comes from the heart. Clothing never protects us from judgment. The dreams may represent society and the individual, two people, or the dual nature of one.
Ha!
Baby beds neatly made on top of grownup beds. Slipping on a banana peel. Are you calling me Father, Father? It's a bucket inside a bucket! That isn’t the set for Romeo and Juliet!
Wake up laughing! Repetition, the small inside the large, no causal reason from set up to punchline, no narrative at all, what is presented is just funny! Some inherent pattern that gets ya. What else is a laugh?!
Hahahahahahahahahaha
Matter
The drawings and sculptures contain these elements, transformed by fire or mortar and pestle.
A feather attached to a dream of vulnerability.
A small fig for her mother who is close to her time and grandmother who’s spirit visits.
A jar of torn sheet music, letters, flowers, a lock of hair, chocolate and other items “Indicator of an Individual - Roger.” A deeply loved husband who passed away this year.
Items of Isla, pieces of clothes and love letters, her favorite scent. A loved partner who passed away this year.
One lava rock left from the last house project father and son worked on together. The rest of the rocks are at home as a reminder.
A raspberry leaf
A White Pine pine cone from east of Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho
Bird seed in a gauze satchel
A piece of driftwood shaped like a bird
Six stones brought by different people. Red jasper, moonstone, river stones, pebbles
An angel charm, metal
Aztec sandstone, Valley of Fire, Nevada
A clay stone imprinted with “he/him”
The face of Prince. “The only deity I recognize.”
Dollar bill. US. “Jim” written twice
Tootsie roll wrapper, folded into a “chatterbox” or paper fortune teller
Fortune cookie fortune
Playa dust, Burning Man
Hand warmer contents
Carbon water filter contents
I dream of a life filled with Art