Attention Intentions — Creating 2020
Dear Friends,
Happy New Year! As we close the last decade and enter 2020, I feel myself, for the first time, in the full current of the 21st century. Though I have no way to predict the future, I feel a vision — perhaps a wish — taking shape for the new year and beyond.
The core of my work and ideas for the past five years has been the belief that what we imagine creates our sense of reality and in turn, our world. Therefore, it is my intention to turn my attention to some broad shifts I see taking place around me:
A move from extractive modes of operation to caring, maintenance and repairing inspired by the knowledge that the separate self is an illusion -- everything we do is “hitched to everything else in the universe,” as John Muir put it.
Awakening to a "Down and in," ecological understanding of existence: that we are part of everything. There is only connection. Consciousness is everywhere — shit, compost, animals, plants, humans, bacteria — are all part of it. Everything is part of the karmic cycle / water cycle / food chain / energy cycle.
No Mud, No Lotus: all circumstances (the mud) are the ground and opportunity for our collective awakening (the lotus). You can’t have one without the other. There is nothing wrong with any circumstances, but we do the transformative work of building lotus body from the mud because this is what it is for. Mud can be a great building material.
With these perspectives as my [rose-colored] lenses, I intend to step into 2020 with the remembrance that my art is my gift to the world. Whatever inspires it doesn’t belong to me, but in coming through me, it asks and challenges me to share it widely.
Last year, I got to do a lot of cool stuff: I debuted Museum of Me at a major American Museum (Mass MoCA); I presented my first solo curatorial project, Suffer Better, at 184 Project Space with artists whose work I love and admire; I was part of a hot summer group show, SPF 32; Auctioned artworks on Instagram with See You Next Thursday; Spoke about my work at The Wing, at cultural salons; and my project Goldlugger featured in the Tool Book Project.
I am grateful to everyone who took the time to come to my studio, everyone who has chosen to acquire my work, and to all who participated and each of these events. By making culture, we shift culture. Let’s envision it, tend the vision, and keep living, loving and laughing together.
In gratitude and bluesky,
Alex