My latest installation of works is currently hanging at the Mars Hill Graduate School campus in downtown Seattle. Instead of having an opening reception we're doing a 'closing' reception. I hope many folks will find their way there March 29.
Was given a free guitar from a friend last year and have been inspired to learn how to play. I'm just trying to learn chords and stuff from songs I like. Right now it's Ben Harper's She's Only Happy In The Sun.
Some friends of mine 'taught' me about playing slide with a beer bottle at a St. Patrick's Day party, I'm no Ben Harper, nor will I ever be, but it's a lot of fun.
"And if the sun sets you free . . . "
Okay, so my previous blog entry was a bit heavy. But I believe wholeheartedly that 'good' art and true 'artists' provoke us to take a serious look at ourselves and the culture around us more honestly...
But ultimately for Lin, it is her work that speaks the loudest. I have been reading about the Confluence Project in which Lin has been designing and installing sculptural works along the Columbia River that runs between Oregon and Washington State. What's fascinating is how Ms. Lin continues to live into previous observations she's made about herself and her works. She writes in Boundaries:
I feel I exist on the boundaries. Somewhere between science and art, art and architecture, public and private, east and west. I am always trying to find a balance between these opposing forces, finding the place where opposites meet.
water out of stone
glass that flows like water
the fluidity of a rock
stopping time
existing not on either side but on the line that divides and that line takes on a dimensionality, it takes on a sense of place and shape.
And now, since 2000, she's been working on the Confluence Project. A series that literally exists on a body of water that is a boundary. I have been considering the reality of life on the boundaries for quite some time. The so-called 'inhabitants' of the fringes of culture or the 'hinterland-ers' seem to have a deeper sense of the truth of things. Not to imply that they have it all figured out, but that there is a sense of the profundity and the paradoxical nature of reality that those who risk life on the fringes seem to be more than happy to embrace. There is a playfulness and freedom in the 'in-between' places...the boundaries.
I've been simultaneously reading Mark C. Taylor's book Erring in which he writes regarding this 'liminal' type of existence (you know, the kind where traditional hierarchies are turned upside down and what he calls 'carnivalesque play' inverts the inherited 'values and established meanings'):
Such a body is not merely found along the boundary; it is actually a boundary or margin.
In her own 'quiet' and beautifully strong way, Maya Lin is participating in the play of inversion. It was a group of Pacific Northwest Native American tribes along with some civic leaders who invited her to work on the Confluence Project in order to 'rethink' the commemorating of the famous Lewis and Clark expeditions. Talk about turning hierarchies upside down!!! It's heroic and courageous...
My return to landscape, inspired by Lin's work (I would also include Andy Goldsworthy's work as well) is about the 'thing' that first inspired a sense of awe...the earth that I live on. I'm not sure where this is leading, but I'm delighted to begin reconsidering the possibilities...well, maybe more scared than delighted...but then again, what is the difference really?
Many reading my previous blog have already looked up who Maya Lin is. Her fame has come from her being the designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Historians will recall that a great controversy ensued over not only the design but the choice of the 'designer.' Lin is what we would call a Chinese-American, born to two Chinese immigrants, who considers Athens, Ohio her home. She's an American, born and raised. She recalls back in 1982 during the VVM controversy having sort of dismissed the questions regarding her race and it's influence on the design. She writes:
Eventually, though, it occurred to me to ask the veterans if my race mattered. They seemed embarrassed . . . and it was then that I realized that people were having problems with the fact that a "gook" had designed the memorial.
It left me chilled.
In my readings, even those associated directly with the season of Lent, keep reminding me of this incredible woman and other people of color like her who daily face what she describes in the following story:
Sometimes a total stranger - a cabdriver, for example - will ask me where I am from. I mutter "Here it goes again" or I will respond, "Ohio," and the stranger will say, "No, no, where are you really from?" It used to upset me to always be seen as other - not really from here . . . not really American . . . but then from where? So I used to practically get into brawls with the person, insisting I was really from Ohio. At that point, more than a few have lectured me on how I shouldn't be ashamed of my heritage.. So now, practiced at avoiding conflict, I say, "Ohio . . . but my mother is from Shanghai and my father is from Beijing."
. . . I am not allowed to be from here; to some I am not really an American.
Now I get a little frustrated with folks like me, a white Euro-American, part of the privileged race, seem to get on a high horse about race and say things like, "I'm not racist." I like to think that I'm not, but then I'm immediately reminded of the time when I was in the grocery store restroom and as I was leaving a gentleman with a turban on his head, a Sikh Hindu presumably, and a large backpack. I'm ashamed by what thoughts ran through my head at that moment . . . I'm not sure if you want to know how my pace quickened to get out of the restroom . . . and a Sikh isn't even terrorist material! I didn't necessarily 'do' anything racist or prejudiced, but my mind went to that place, and I think that many Euros like me know what I"m talking about. There still remains a reality of more subtle, but in the end no less harmful, form of racial stereotyping. Then again, maybe I'm the only one.
As great as the film Amazing Grace was, I was saddened by the reality of another film about the white folks saving the black folks. This isn't to take anything away from the story of Wilburforce, it is a great story and one worth telling. But I guess it's my awareness that it was that type of story. I asked a close friend (a brother of color) of mine, Wendell, last week if he had seen the film and what he thought. He graciously affirmed that the movie was a good movie, but he also had to shake his head in the manner that tells me that this is not unfamiliar territory for him, territory where you go to see a movie where 'the white school teacher is the one who leads the black students to discover their ability to succeed (or whatever the particular scenario might be)...' The subtle message is that being a person of color makes that person 'other.' A reality Maya Lin and my friend live with everyday.
An equally harmful phenomenon occurs, though, when people say that 'all we need to try to be is color-blind.' I even hear black celebrities say these kind of things. But that doesn't help either because the implication is that someone has to assimilate to someone else, try to fit into the culture where there is a privileged race. My children, as far as I can see, will probably never know what it's like to be looked at as 'other.' But Wendell dreads the day when his child comes home from school for the first time having been treated differently or mistreated and the viscious awareness of being the 'other' has once again begun to consume a whole new generation. The strange paradox is, though, that I do not truly see my friends of color if I'm obsessed with not seeing their color!!! The more I claim to be 'color-blind' says that I choose to ignore a significant part of who that person is. The more I apologize for offending, makes it all about me again and the story of that friend is lost in my need feel good about myself.
So what's my point? I'm not sure if there is one, but I am aware. Maya Lin's work goes beyond the subject of physical earthly landscapes to the landscapes of our souls. The souls that long to be known. So hopefully this will be food for thought.
I don't regret much in my life, but I do regret missing Maya Lin's "Systematic Landscapes" exhibit at the University of Washington's Henry Art Gallery last year.
You can pick up the book by the same title.
More on this incredible woman and her vision in entries to come.
My friend Mark and I meet most Friday mornings at a Starbucks in Monroe. I've known him a couple of years now, but my first impressions of him were seeing him as a nursery/walker worker at our church...this man has a gift with little kids! When our youngest daughter was just a few months old, he held her and she snuggled right in like she'd known him forever. Our younger son who had him in the 'walkers' room a few years ago loved seeing Mark...and typically wouldn't go in there if he wasn't there.
Well, I had kind of forgotten about this man's gift until this morning at coffee when a mom and her little girl walked by to go the the restroom. The girl was probably 3 or 4 at the most and was dressed like she was going skiing later (Monroe is a key stop on the way to Stephens Pass on Highway 2 in Washington state) and the mom couldn't care less about us sitting there but it was like some magical vibe flowing out of Mark that compelled the girl to wave and smile at him! It was incredible to see, and it happened again as she came past another time.
Ironically Mark is rather scary to adults. He kind of resembles a bear (not a teddy bear mind you) and he tells me how some folks seem to be rather wary of him when they cross paths. Mark likes guns alot and told me it's tempting to move to Idaho because they have more realistic and thereby smarter gun laws. He's writing a book with all sorts of practical lists for preparing yourself for 'worst case scenarios'...he calls them 'bug-out-kits' which includes different varieties of backpacks, carpacks, 'man-purses,' etc. If there were ever a global catastrophe I'm glad he's my friend. He's also an amazing source of what he calls 'trivial information' but it's always fascinating. I call him my research assistant (there's got to be a better word than 'assistant' but that will have to do for now). But most of all it's ironic that such a man would be scary to adults...kids love him! I don't know if there's a lesson here, but I thought it a delight to watch my friend magically meet some need in that little girl and her mom had no clue.
"...let the little children come to me..."
Ironically my first season of blogging coincides with my first serious observance of the season of Lent! I've given up popcorn this season, which seems small, but I typically eat a bowl of popcorn 3 or 4 nights a week while I veg out in front of the T.V. I depend on that divine snack food in a strange way. Heather and I went to see 'Amazing Grace' at the theatre last Friday night and the smell was like torture for me...especially when we left after the film was over and I saw a bag of popcorn sitting a few seats away that the owner had only eaten a third of!!!
So I've been reflecting on today's scriptural passage Matthew 26:36-46 where Jesus goes to pray at Gethsemane which is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew for 'oil press' which, of course, refers to olive oil in particular. And oil naturally makes me think of popcorn because you can't make popcorn without oil! I just finished writing a lengthy blog at our house church's Lent blog sitehttp://www.newvintagefusion.wordpress.com and for the second time I somehow clicked on the wrong thing and lost it all!!! It was damn good too. Full of deep theological and cultural points of interest, and of course a healthy dose of my rather verbose tendency to make sure I really get my point across. So I'm finding it ironic that I can't even write about Lent at our lent blog site, nor am I sure whether or not this blog will work...so if you're reading this, then you are indeed blessed because I finally got something published in the blogosphere.
However, perhaps the Holy Spirit was sparing me the embarassment of publishing something just a bit over the top. I don't know if it was mercy or torture (or just plain techno-savvy-less-ness on my part), but I'm sure not writing that thing again...at least not today.