Here’s Looking at You

In the spirit of Noah Purifoy, I’ve finished a couple of little installation pieces on the property. The place is developing its own geography and I will soon have to make a map similar to Winnie the Pooh’s woods. The Medicine Wheel and Memorial Wall continue as a work in progress but this late spring brought a meditation on the collapse of a wooden chair left out in the elements, a palm frond fence covering, and an installation using four boxes of camera bodies, lenses, and miscellaneous photography accessories that Ric had collected. He had always said they would be worth a lot of money someday. That has not happened but it’s an excellent sub-title for this piece. I placed all that I could in the stubs of the trimmed fronds on a palm tree and littered the ground below with photography detritus. Ric’s unfinished masks found there way into the assemblage and seem to fit well.

The Whole World is Watching is another sub-title of the piece. This chant from the protestors at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention has come to mind frequently in these turbulent political times. Back then, the videotaping of the police violence allowed us all to watch the horror live in a way we had not seen before. Today, we are flooded with images and news reports to an extent beyond our abilities to integrate in a healthy way. The yin and the yang of technology’s possibilities brings the imperative of taking responsibility to find a personally healthy way to guard against excess while still remaining informed and engaged.

These installation pieces are proving to be activities I use to help myself filter the appalling truths of our 21^st century world in an uplifting way. I feel really good about reusing materials that would normally be thrown away. The time I spend creatively thinking helps me view subjects a little more deeply before being blasted by another. The work outside and manipulating objects feels so grounding and healing. It all feels like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle that I’m called to put together. It’s especially satisfying when the seemly useless and valueless things I have reveal some fun new use or become the perfect thing to give someone else at just the right time and space.