Escaping Artist

You missed a great year for the merciless banter you loved. We would have teased you endlessly for turning 30 before the rest of us, and I would have spent an afternoon searching for a delightfully horrible card to commemorate the beginning of us “getting old.” You, on the other hand, could have made humorous stuff from my being separated at twenty-five after a long and perplexed marriage. As funny as a truckload of dead babies you might have said, and rightfully so.

It is too easy to be disappointed with people who have died. We expect them, though perhaps not literally, to be alive in all the ways we expect people who are alive to be. We want friends when alone, comfort when upset, consolation when afraid, advice when lost. The deceased, no matter how much we loved and miss them, do not readily provide these living human functions, which is perhaps why we miss them more, or most, in times of need. Damn it, can’t you just wander in while I am sleeping and give me your take on this situation? I catch myself every so often thinking these things and selfishly wishing you could be a little bit here even while still being there.

» Read the rest of this entry «

If San Francisco is an iconic and beloved city that defines the west coast to outsiders, then the Golden Gate Bridge is more an iconic symbol of California than the grizzly bear prowling the state flag. Like Highway 1 and the coastline it winds along, the Golden Gate Bridge is one of California’s greatest attractions. I have driven on, walked across, and taken a boat tour under, that bridge.

The 2006 documentary, The Bridge, aesthetically resembles countless postcards of the Golden Gate, and the surrounding areas it connects together. It feels as though it were filmed from every geographic point from which the looming red gate can be seen, and it captures, much like a living object, its different personalities. We see the Golden Gate from above, below, and behind surrounding parks. Time-lapse photography allows its appearance to change in seconds as fog rolls in and out of the bay, clouds linger or pass across the highest suspension points, as rare San Francisco mornings of bright blue push yesterdays clutter from the sky. Quoting an article from the New Yorker entitled “Jumpers,” on which the film was based, “there is a fatal grandeur to the place.”

» Read the rest of this entry «

Sitting in the Dallas Airport once again on my way to Palm Springs, I passed my layover in the usual way by eating lunch and photographing out the window. Instead of catching the Obama plane like some I know, I witnessed something more sinister.

I thought at first a famous “someone” was boarding the plane fueling near my gate, as cars of an unusual kind drove outside the plane, and uncharacteristic people milled around the wings. I was taking pictures more out of boredom than interest, and I was watching mostly because the activity was happening in my direct line of vision. As I snapped away, the milling men directed a certain car into a specific place, and they themselves appeared to be assuming some kind of formation. The closer I watched the unfolding activity, the more I pieced together what was happening. The men were military officers in dress uniforms, and the car was a hearse.

» Read the rest of this entry «

Two years does not seem to be a very significant marker when you are expecting a lifetime more, but two years in reverse, two years since so many things, is almost unbelievable. Despite all that has changed since you left, I am still amazed by how much we miss our friend.

You have become an elusive man to pin down; you come and go from my life now that I don’t force you to exist tangibly through my artwork. The thesis was the culmination of a one sided relationship I could not maintain. I can’t force myself to remember you, and I can’t choose to forget, so you exist spontaneously now in undulating waves of joy and sorrow.

I listened to your songs today, at work, on the train, at home, and now while I write, the songs of your death. It was not inappropriate to do so, nor morbid, because today is the day you died; they are beautiful songs. They are not the tunes you played for me in life, though I know you did, they are the songs we chose to describe our sorrow. These few have become the descriptive moments of a passing I still remember a little too clearly.

And I have discovered you learn to live with grief the way you learn to live with yourself. I still feel the regret and disappointment, but without the desperation.

» Read the rest of this entry «

When I tell people, as an explanation for specific recent work, that my best friend died last year they have a variety of reactions, but I can count upon receiving self-assured commiseration. There seems to be a prevalent attitude from such sympathizers that, while they may not understand the particulars they can understand the devastation. This seems reasonable at first thought, but when considered seriously it shows how meaningless death can become when it is not in any way related to ourselves. Answering such questions as could this work be seen as therapy forced me to seriously reconsider given sympathies, and question the extent to which a person can allow themself to grasp an unpleasant situation when the shattering nature of it has not been directly felt. Whether it is a hard worked at selfishness or an innate limitation of the human capacity to “feel” (I sometimes wonder if it is necessary to function as I can hardly stand to watch a plant wilt) there seems to be a clear line of how much I can understand of such situations for others and therefore others of mine. Watching the French film Joyeux Noel I cringed the moment the differing forces entered the battlefield made neutral by the appearance of Christmas. Knowing nothing of warfare and disregarding notions about the films “accuracy” I guessed or felt this holiday from war was going to make it nearly impossible for them to kill each other the following morning. Could this zone of personal interaction be lacking in discussions around and reactions to work dealing with death and loss of an unusual and intimate kind? I wonder about these notions of imposed limitation while fully acknowledging the fault could lie in my execution and explanation of these ideas. If these limitations are a truthful part of human nature, however defined, why then is there such a predilection toward false emotion and deference? Is it simply the upholding of a cultural custom, similar to the question “how are you?” that is asked without the slightest fear of it being answered? A wince and exclamation of “so young” can be surprisingly more honest than dismissive questions or an unhealthy curiosity for details—“how large was the tumor?”

» Read the rest of this entry «