Taking a Personal Celebration Up a Notch

Running has always been a passion of mine, but it is also one of the main ways I stay mentally (as well as physically) healthy. I lost that outlet for a while last winter due to injury and it took me many months to regain what I had lost. Happily, by summer I was back fully fit—and even better because my rehab had improved my strength, balance, and flexibility. I’m grateful for the process and I wanted to celebrate my return to wellness in a way that adds abundance to the community that helped me get back on my feet.

Charlottesville is blessed with many beautiful (but often hidden or even private) places to experience nature. Perhaps the crown jewel is the Rivanna Trail, a twenty-mile hiking path that encircles the city. It is a favorite spot for running, walking and mountain biking and I have probably logged thousands of miles on it—but I’ve never done the whole thing at once. There is a group that runs the loop every year around the winter solstice so I made that my goal: I trained and prepared for the 20-mile loop run in December as my own celebration of good health.

From my 20-years’ work on the New York City Marathon I knew that running—that seemingly solitary sport can—can also be a massively collective celebration of the Possible. I wanted my personal milestone to happen in a way that could inspire other people, draw strength from those around me, and have a direct positive financial impact: all things that happen abundantly with the five-borough race. I decided to do the run as a fundraiser for my employer, the Piedmont Environmental Council, which among other things promotes trails in my area.

This decision to run for a cause had consequences. It made it larger than me and created accountability. Once I announced publicly that I would do it, there was no going back. It also rallied lots of support to my side in the form of encouragement from family, friends, and even a group of my teammates who volunteered to run all or part of it with me. That group of champions happened to include the physician who oversaw my rehab, which was a nice connection.



The run got delayed by a week due to epic flooding on the trail, which was actually kind of good because it landed the run on the day after the Solstice. It was a bit of a sogfest: we still had to wade through waist-deep water in several places. It was also more beautiful than I had imagined, with a mist, clear light and a big full moon that set at sunrise of that first lengthening day. Although I was obviously tired at the end and it was plenty challenging, it was easier on my body than I had expected. That might result from the joy of celebration: it felt more like renewal than closure.

I easily exceeded the modest ($400) goal I had set. I could have probably raised much more but that wasn’t really the point. I mainly wanted to demonstrate that the ways that we each personally strive to become better at whatever we do can be shared with others. It will inspire them; and when they rally to your cause, it will further energize you and make your goals easier to obtain.

I’m telling you this in the hope that it will inspire you. As you make plans and do your cool and even wacky projects, be sure to let other people know about them so they can help you and get better together. It’s good for everyone.

Cities + Nature

There's abundant nature where people live their daily lives but do they experience it? I took this shot during a vacant-lot safari with Sebastian at the corner of Monticello and Carlton Road, a block from our home.
As part of my professional development, I’m taking a class called Cities + Nature at the University of Virginia. It examines the importance of interaction with Nature and ways for planners to make it part of the everyday experience. This post is part of a series on the subject.

My professor invokes the notion of a Nature Pyramid to describe a practical diet of exposure to the Natural World. At the top, one finds rare but intense lifetime experiences such as a safari or a raft ride down the Grand Canyon; in the middle trips to state parks; further down daily or weekly rituals like gardening; and all the way at the bottom views through windows or even looking at art. When I worked in a downtown financial firm, the productive people all had flyers for cruises or postcards pinned to their cubicle walls so they could rest their eyes several times an hour. A pet or a houseplant serves a similar function.

From an urban planning perspective, it makes sense to focus on the bottom half of the ladder, seeking ways to improve the quantity and quality of experience in towns and neighborhoods where people spend most of their time. Do we hear birds or see butterflies? Smell flowers or leaf rot or a skunk’s nocturnal passage? Do possums cross our yard or robins nest in our porch? Can we see the sun rise or set or clouds pass overhead? Feel fresh breezes or crunch on a frosty path?

These are not man-on-cliff confrontations with the Sublime but through a lifetime they add up to a connection with something much larger than ourselves, a centering force that makes us better and healthier.

Holiday Celebration = Social Investment

It pays to take a breath and notice the resources we have in one another.

I recently wrote a celebration of shallow ties that unite the community and enrich us all but we can’t overlook the deeper ones either. From a social perspective, the holidays are about recognizing and reinforcing our connections on all levels.

From a nod on the street, to an office party, gift baskets for customers, Christmas cards for old neighbors we no longer see, brunches with friends and visits (even under duress) to or from families out-of-state, the season is a gauntlet of social obligations.

The other day, my wife and I shared our annual holiday freakout from being overwhelmed by it all. I asked her to take a deep breath and I needed one myself. So I walked to the studio through the neighborhood.

DC deserves personhood status.

Detail, Yoko Ono's "Wish Tree for Washington DC" at the Hirshorm Museum and Sculpture Garden. Definitely feeling some love on this trip....

I just got back from a Fourth-of-July getaway weekend to Washington, DC—the place where I grew up and came of age. Meredith and I lived there during an unforgettable period—Marion Barry’s bitch-set-me-up heyday—and a pivotal time in our own small lives. Our first independent households, careers born, graduate school, married and identity frameworks forged. It will always be a special place and I love going back there but I was especially jazzed to notice something profound on this past trip: a new maturity, though I cannot say whose.

The DMV has arrived as a major metropolis, in ways that go beyond its enormous size. The Metro is still pretty clean but now it has buskers, rats, people selling crap—and a feeling of shared endeavor. There’s a lot going on around town, quite different from the easily exhausted scene in the eighties and nineties. It’s grown nicely and added many cool things—like the terrific Capital Bike Share, on which New York’s CitiBike is modeled. The infrastructure has improved and it’s even more pleasant to walk, run and ride about then it was before.

Even though much has been added through in-fill (enterprises ranging from garden shops to a baseball team), many of the institutions from back in the day are still there as well: stores, restaurants, bars, secret gardens, shortcuts through the woods, places to hear a guy play sax by the river.

By contrast, nearly all of my friends have moved on, which surprisingly does not bother me—it’s just the flow of life. It’s almost the opposite of New York where most people are still there, clinging to whatever branch or root they can find, while the landscape around them is blasted away by a flood of real estate money.

Meantime, DC has continued to grow and flourish, playing with new ideas and points of view. Being back this time felt like visiting a friend that has retained its main personality traits and is still very familiar and welcoming but has developed in the meantime, with new thoughts to share. The city had acquired personhood—or maybe I just noticed it.

I grew up a huge devotee of Italo Calvino, Armistead Maupin, Lawrence Durrell and writers who talk about cities as living, organic entities. But that didn’t really feel the case for my hometown. It was as if the abundant green space dispersed the energy too much for it to coalesce and ignite fusion, making it a pleasant place but not a real city.

The spark is definitely there now, but if Calvino taught me anything it’s the impossibility of knowing whether it’s the place that has changed or if the maturation I’ve noticed is my own.

Postscript:

I ran the concept by my friend long-time James, traveler, poet/philosopher Lawrence Durrell character. He just recently gave up his DC address but was back in town to work the Folklife Festival and couch surfing--much as I do for the Marathon. We watched the fireworks together on a rooftop with a partially obscured view, then went back to his friend's apartment and drank Virginia viognie and talked about the world. A typical evening. Anyway, when I texted my thesis to him, he responded:

I think DC is stuck in an adolescent purgatory and will never attain personhood. This is because it is a 4-year town. If we move the capital to St Louis,  DC will become Fred Sanford.

Well then.

Art and Public Policy: Synthesis

As part of my professional education and ongoing research, I was fortunate to audit George Sampson and Lindsey Hepler’s class on the Arts and Public Policy in the Architecture School at the University of Virginia. This post, and others in this series are reaction to our readings and discussions in which I find links between our readings and discussion and the front lines of community-based art. This is my end-of class synthesis essay.

The Citizen Artist, protagonist in our Arts and Public Policy course, embodies the broad intersection between art and policy. We’ve described him, asked what he can offer and wondered whether he is getting what he needs to thrive. This question is about more than personal satisfaction: the citizen artist is ideally suited for our rapidly changing world and his critical thinking, creativity, synthesizing approach and ability to imagine into reality are key ingredients for a healthy democracy. As Bill Bennett says, those who are competent manage but those who are creative lead. Prior to the course I suspected, and the readings and lectures have confirmed, that the dominant public policy approach is not particularly well suited for assessing or fostering creative civics; it has a real blind spot there. Perhaps the question needs to be inverted: rather than focusing mainly on the worthy goal of fostering the arts through policy, let’s ask how the arts can inform better public policy—or, at least, how they can work better in tandem.

Artists actively engage their own experiential development—discovery, experimentation, synthesis, pursuit of excellence. They delight in process as much as result, and are therefore disciplined in developing their ideas and capacity through endless iterative and synthetic experimentations. They want to sharpen their skills so they can bring their creations to life. They also broaden their vision and have a high capacity for diversity (for it is their fuel) and they are therefore unhindered by the central dilemma of democracy: how to reconcile freedom and consensus. They do it all the time in their artwork. The America of our dreams where creativity, discipline and joy in work open a brighter future for all will need a population rich in these qualities.

Artists are Agents of Negentropy

As part of my professional education and ongoing research, I’m fortunate to be permitted to audit George Sampson and Lindsey Hepler’s class on the Arts and Public Policy in the Architecture School at the University of Virginia. This post, and others in the series are reaction to our readings and discussions.

There are so many amazing ideas and topics that come up in this class. In just the first week’s reading and discussion I feel like I’ve uncovered a lifetime of food for thought. We’re looking at the search for meaning through experience and the process of creation. What tools and resources strengthen a life, a community or a nation? Ideal topics for a community-based artist on a mission.

The course looks at art through two main lenses: contemplation and expression and the first week has focused on the former. We spoke briefly with our neighbors about a contemplative approach and came together on the ideas that it is an active, conscious and intentional centering exercise that opens, cleanses and illuminates. Useful life skills in addressing the contradictions that weigh every decision.

We’re moving past a Twentieth Century that sought to cure the world’s ills (and caused more than it's share) by trying to identify dysfunctions and eliminating them. The new approach is a positive paradigm that desires to build and nourish. A positive paradigm is holistic (instead of zeroing in a syndrome) and seeks to grow the entity far past its baseline. It’s about potential instead of limitations and on this ground, Art is a potent force.

One of our texts, Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi studies ways to optimize experience and find meaning, appreciation (and yes power) in all domains. The section we read talks about how to reconcile differentiation and integration on all levels from the deeply personal to the whole social. It defines meaning as purpose, intention/resolution and organization/harmony.

In a complex world, this is difficult and it is not obvious how best to reconcile competing and sometimes oppositional ideas—not only from different points of view but within a single individual. How do we keep our thoughts organized and positively employed? Yet we must if we are to thrive.

Perspective is key: what matters is how we perceive each of our circumstances and our ideas about what they mean go a long way toward whether they limit us or not. In fact, our circumstances actually empower us if we can be smart about where we go from them.

As I read, Csikszentmihalyi dropped a term that stopped me in my tracks and illuminated many things. He cites the word negentropy, which I had never heard before but which is supremely powerful.

The reverse of entropy, negentropy is the force that brings things together, establishes order where there was none. For example, Wikipedia, states that Life itself is a negentropic force:

Life is considered to be negentropic because it takes things in less order, like dead food, and turns it into things in more order, like cells in the body, tissues, and organs.

This is also what the artist does: gathers ideas, sounds, visions, etc and produces something new, coherent and perhaps even astonishing. Art is a negentropic tool and, when drawing from a shared heritage provides valuable insight into how to order the often baffling chaos that surrounds us all. So art is a search for the organizational structure for life itself.

The artist is an agent of negentropy: a bringer of perspective who offers insights that allow us to bridge experience and intention and move forward toward our maximum potential. It is part of our human makeup and available to everyone. It's good for the artist and good for the audience.

That is certainly a Positive Paradigm!

Primary Colors

The Awakening. Ink and watercolor on paper, 9" x 12". I made this drawing while in residency in a secluded mountain cabin. I've never felt so awake or alive.

Richard Louv talks about the importance primary (as opposed to secondary or received) experience, conveyed through the five senses.

I’ve always felt that it’s the artist’s role to invigorate those senses, to tickle them with a feather. It’s the artist’s job to investigate the world, to be active explorers and then report back in a way that awakens others to their own experiences and see the world with more intensity and nuance.

There's a linkage between the natural world and our engagement in our sensory experience and Louv discusses that as well. That’s the main thing I want to explore with the Story|Line kids: encourage them to tune in to the world around them, make note of it and share what they’ve found.

The more they do that, the more they will be artists.

40? I hear 40. Do I hear 100?

From the window of the Starlight Express. Interesting bending effect from the video grab of my iPhone camera. Reminds me of my own body.

I turned forty last month and suddenly I felt like I was a hundred. One week, I set a personal best at ten miles, two weeks later, a sub-par half-marathon; a week later I couldn’t run a step. My legs felt like gristly hamburger, my body all twisted up, something clearly not right. Running, walking, sitting--it all hurt. I was becoming an ice-bath and ibuprofen junkie and of course not sleeping well. Did Father Time run me down and hamstring me in my flight?

Time for a new approach, one focused on building from the core. A hilarious mix-up landed me accidentally in a yoga class and it seemed exactly right. Balance exercises, pilates, and form-based running drills—I’m taking a broad-front approach and I’m seeing results, but they’ve been slow in coming.

As I write this, I’m wrapping up a trip to New York. Schlepping my baggage around, sleeping on a couch, and being away from routine doesn’t seem like a good way to find balance and alignment. And last night I learned why they call it the City that Never Sleeps. After a fun evening at the Roller Derby, the lads and young ladies wanted to go out and celebrate but I had worked a race that morning so like a dutiful forty-year-old I opted for bed instead. “Long day.” As if in retribution for being so lame, I lay awake for four hours. Maybe I should have gone out.

Well when I woke up a few short hours later, I felt…terrific. I suppose it was a case of quality over quantity. I had a yogi brunch with Anki, a visit with Amelia A, and a stroll through the Lower East Side and saw some great art, feeling better and better throughout the day. By the time I reached the bus, I was doing overhead curls with my suitcase.

What’s gotten into me?

I actually think I got something out. I must have wrestled and bested it as I lay awake last night. It was like a persistent flu bug that lingers for so long that recovery comes as a shock. So this is what it feels like to be well!

If old age steals in like a thief in the night, so does wellness. Or maybe my aches don’t seem so bad compared to what those derby girls must be feeling right about now. Whatever the case, I’m glad to have my body back.

Thanks as always to those who take care of me!

Unexpected Singularity

Our friends went for the Full Virginia: from the beach to a mountaintop and--of course--the sweet hill country in between.

We had just said goodbye to some dear friend visitors from New York and to chase away the sadness, I went for a run through the neighborhood and down into the woods. I was met by a feeling I did not expect.

As I rolled through the hills, amidst the yellow storm of pollen; past the banks of iris; along brick sidewalks and faux-brick painted asphalt crosswalks that light up and make cars stop; past farm houses and Belmont Bungaloes, stacks of spare construction materials; hearing country music, rock-and-roll, blues and young couples arguing about sex; smelling wisteria, honeysuckle and barbeque; giving and receiving suggestive glances; in an arena defined by surrounding mountains, old-seeming roads, and walls of poison ivy, I was keenly aware of how singular this place is.

By showing my friends around my favorite places, I quite naturally focused on what's good and what's unique. I had a wonderful time just spending time with them and stay-cationing in a place that's just as great to visit as to live. It was a good reminder of what I love and how well we live.

As I cruised back to my happy little house, seat of my happy life, the echoes of my friends laughter were waiting of course but there was something else: a refreshing contentment, as if waking from a good nights sleep on a bright, clear morning.

The Hummus Revolution

This picture doesn't match the subject matter exactly but it's new and I like it. Maybe it's more about how nature pulls things down instead of pushing them up, but it's really all part of the same story isn't it?

Springtime comes as a a shock every year--suddenly backyard and garden are in full riot--but it shouldn't. The vivacious life we see all over the place in April is always there but it's hidden under the leaves and in the soil. The real action is at the bacterial level, weeks and months of plotting and planning in a fully decentralized way. By the time shoots break the surface, it's just a few days until full flowering and winter's dreary cloak shoved aside without possibility of reversal.

Where does it come from? Broadly speaking the answer is "the soil," the unorganized hummus left over from what came before. The ground we walk on is alive and the source of all things.

I'm really interested to see how humans manifest the same pattern. Who organized the current upheaval in the Middle East? The answer is dispersed, quite different from the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century revolutions with their parties and manifestos. It came from the People. In a world where information is widely shared and communications dispersed, there is a new process for developing ideas. It's less like a brain and more like a gut, which is how the garden works and its power is unmistakable--and difficult or impossible to control.

The creative spirit works the same way. The artist channels unnameable energies from unknown sources toward an unknowable end and this is why poets and musicians always show up on the barricades. In a time of great uncertainty, the artist is in his element. We're well accustomed to getting all muddy and we have work to do.

Seasons Passing

There’s nothing I enjoy more than a stroll through a field alive with the sound of cicadas.

This weekend officially marked Summer’s passing and I cannot help feeling a little melancholy every time. Sure, it’s 90 degrees out but the signs are unmistakable: the edge is gone and the season is changing. For all that the fields are golden with wildflowers and the trees are still clothed in green, you can feel it in the cool shadows, the chilly nights, and the freezing water. The calendar has turned a page.

I love all the seasons but let's face it: summer is the best. I don’t mind the sun or the heat and I just love the way the plants (and consequently the animals) thrive. Although every season is interesting and has its charms, the best thing about summer is the way it makes us live—relaxed, easier, and closer to our primal selves. It feels so free: the scant clothes we wear, the trips we take and the places we go, and the outdoorsy things we do. It’s undeniably better away from the city where the natural world is so accessible.

These past few months had an added advantage in the form of a little pint-sized sidekick riding along with me on the tandem bike, in the garden, on hikes, and in the studio. Instead of sending Sebastian to camp, we thought it would be interesting for him to tag along with his artist dad and it was certainly more affordable. It wasn’t always easy and we may not do it again but he was really good company and always very lively. I’ll cherish the memories of the many fun things we did together.

Seasons pass and kindergarteners become first-graders. As summer slowly fades into autumn, it’s impossible not to see how time runs away from us. Good times pass, surely to be replaced by others, but this time of year really brings that home to me and I sigh as I fold up my bathing suit and put my flip-flops away.

Hello Autumn.

March Madness

March is a time of emergence and stepping forth. The sun passes over the Equator and will stay with us for a few seasons. Lives that were thriving but hidden under the fallen leaves burst into the open bold and vigorous. Renewal is in the air in the countryside, and in the city too!

Back in old New York, Jen Dalton and Bill Powhida closed the book on their month-long #class extravaganza. They were kind enough to allow me to moderate the discussion on Artworld as High School. My session was fun, but my strongest impression came from the overall experience of being inside the larger exhibition—albeit for a short time.

I needed surprisingly much reflection to settle on the word exhibition to describe #class. Although there was technically some art on display, it was marginalized to a secondary room. #Class was not about the presentation of visual artifacts, as is typical in most gallery shows, but rather the pure exchange of ideas, usually ephemeral, in the larger conference- (or classroom-) configured main gallery.

On the night I was there, it started with a two-our table discussion about similarities between the Art World and a clique-infested school cafeteria. I wore my letter jacket, which I am proud to say still fits and we talked about how to penetrate the small group that inhabits the top of the social pyramid (for sake of discussion, we accepted the metaphor as valid) and the ways that art explodes stratification. It was a very worthwhile conversation, but it was just the beginning.

Following that session, the tables were rearranged and there ensued a 15 minute audience-inclusive performance that linked drawings of genitalia in a gender-crossing way with the names of respected public figures. The presenter took the drawings with her and no questions were accepted.

Immediately after that, the tables were re-shuffled again and an art-critic wrote an artist statement in real time. Poor Jen was shanghaied to be the guinea pig and, as her art is exceptionally personal, the process resembled open-heart surgery. Perhaps open-soul surgery would be a more apt description.

Then everyone left and we downed some much-needed beers in the back room. The three sessions were enough to make the head spin, more for the diversity of their offerings than their individual emotional intensity, which was considerable. I can scarcely imagine how it must have been for Jen and Bill to repeat the cycle every day for a month. I hope they’re able to retreat to rest and reflect for a while. I won’t even ask for their impressions until some time has passed.

Although the show was not visual, musical, lyrical, or many other things one expects from an art exhibit, it was most definitely an exhibition: a putting-on-display of ideas and artistic information in a discombobulating whirlwind that neither artists could have anticipated. A reshuffling of the creative deck in plain sight.

When I got back to Virginia a few days later, head spinning with thoughts about the non-visual things that an exhibit can do, Nature greeted me with gusting winds and torrential squalls. Neither coming nor going, March was behaving more like an indecisive lion than a lamb.

And green shoots were shoving aside Winter’s blanket.

Full #class thread

Kerosene in a Tin Cup

I've spilt gallons of ink in my journal intime trying to understand the attraction I feel to explore the darker parts of my nature. I try to keep that stuff out of my blog because I have a squeaky-clean image to maintain. Still, this one bit seemed worth sharing. Don't worry: no shocking revelations here.

When I talk about the darker parts of my nature, I'm mostly thinking about the compulsions we all feel to do things that are obviously self-destructive. Why drink too much? Why not sleep enough? Why say foolish things that we know will rebound to hurt us in the end? I want to understand the devil that makes me do these things so I can beat it.

I had a little revelation while I was swimming the other day so I paused to write it down:

Brooklyn, October 21

So I'm starting to understand my desire to flirt with the dark side. It's about proving one' fortitude--mostly to oneself. In this book I'm reading (The Third Chimpanzee), Jared Diamond describes a Kung Fu challenge of drinking Kerosene. Quite impressive to your adversaries if you survive to kick their @$$ with that handicap. There's a ritual version of it but the masters also do it when no one is around. Who are they trying to impress? There can only be one answer...

My Poussin Painting Weekend

So glad we could introduce one of our favorite people--Rachel Liebling (center)--to one of our favorite places--the Goshen Pass. This shot is from the porch of James' parents' so-called cabin. It's more like a compound than a cabin.

It is difficult to imagine a more relaxing or wonderful weekend than the one I just spent in the Goshen Pass. Looking back on it in retrospect, I see that it was special for reasons far beyond the fun and interesting things we did. It was a time when Life really opened up for us in all her beauty, and with a quiet message to embrace it now.

Our friend Rachel was spending the week with us and she brought all kinds of enthusiasm, music, good ideas, helping out around the house and playing with Sebastian. After school on Friday, we all loaded up and drove alongside the Blue Ridge to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. We visited some studios, took a gorgeous swim (I can never help myself), and had a lovely dinner with the fellows. It was great to taste once again Chef Rhonda’s offerings but also to reconnect with the chef herself. She lives in Charlottesville, very close to us, and I hope to get together with her here in the near future.

After dinner, we drove into the sunset and through the fog of a high pass over the mountains and along the Maury River to the Cabin. We’ve been going to “the Cabin” for many years and it’s a major reason why we moved back to Virginia, so we could be closer and go there a few times a year rather than every few years.

Our friend James had a family place on the Goshen Pass, one of the most beautiful places east of the Mississippi. When his family’s lifetime lease on their cabin turned out to be considerably shorter than agreed, James landed on his feet by acquiring an even more beautiful piece of land with a cluster of Civil War era cabins, right across the river, just this side of where the pass closes in around the Maury and a narrow winding road. He and his friends have been renovating the cabins slowly and lovingly for the past ten years. Though the precise locale has changed somewhat, the atmosphere has been constant. So, the Cabin is more about the place, and a state of mind, than a single building. It's about the way we breathe there, and who we spend time with.

James and Marni on the steps of the under-construction cabin.
Photo: Sebastian. Note the waist-high perspective, which is always a dead give-away when he takes the camera.

In fact, we had thought that we would be sleeping in a tent this time, but since most of the cabin owners were away, we were able stay in possibly the most beautiful one. It was the best of both worlds: completely rustic but tightly constructed, beautiful and bug-proof, with a boys’ room that was paradise for our Sebastian.

Morning and afternoon, we skinnidipped in the Maury River, one of the cleanest rivers in Virginia and even from atop the tallest boulder, with which the valley is strewn, we could not see any signs of civilization. To the west, the Allegany Mountains came right down to the water, in an unfurling of ridges and laurel-filled pocket canyons. To the east, the Shenandoah Valley spread in Jeffersonian splendor. The water bounced through the rapids, clear and glistening in the last rays of August, the air so fresh and with a little hint of coolness. It was bliss to dip my head in the water and warm on the rocks.

After dark, we had a communal feast with James, his partner Marni, and our long-time friend-in-cabin-fun Nancy, who is renovating another of the cabins. We toasted Virginia with some champagne we had been saving, a house-warming and farewell gift from our friends Amelia and Mark. After dinner, a beautiful fire—another part of the cabin tradition. By the fireside, we reconnected with the man who lives on the adjoining farm, a bluegrass musician named Cochran and his artist wife and their artist friend who was visiting from (where else?) Greenpoint.

Other highlights included, in no particular order, bare feet in the dewy grass, morning sun on Castle Rock, a run through the silent and misty pass, chatting with old man mushroom hunters, a photo expedition with Sebastian, Lincoln Logs in a log cabin, a beer run that included getting lost (maybe the best part of the trip) and brunch at the Mill Creek Café, the kind of place that’s neither extraordinarily good, nor particularly cheap, but that must be visited.

You can rest easy: Virginia still has her share of freaks.

We drove home through the perfect summer afternoon, with dry air, blue sky, hills all around—Virginia was showing off her full splendor. We stopped by Springtree (the communal farm where Meredith grew up) just long enough for cookies and to show Rachel around the place. She had a bus to catch, so no time for a dip in the hardware, a garden tour, or peaches on the way back. We’ll save those for a later visit, which I sincerely hope will be soon.

After a sad farewell to Rachel back in Charlottesville, I felt a desolation much stronger than I have felt in some time. It is always sad to say farewell to a friend after a wonderful visit, and it’s always harder to be left than to leave. It was an amazing weekend and I was sad for it to be over, yet it is only as I am writing this that I understand the contours of that bittersweet feeling.

As I sat with my friends on the river that last afternoon, that slight chill in the air was important. It hid in the shadows and whispered in the breeze and it would be easy to miss it while baking on those rocks or swimming in the stream, which was still quite warm. But the message was there: Summer was beginning to take its leave, as it does this time every year and it is something that I always sense very acutely and it always leaves me a little melancholy.

Summer is my favorite season, it is when I feel most alive. Although I like the bustle of back-to-school and the brisk Fall air Summer’s passing always makes me a little sad, whether its about the changing of the Seasons or the Passage of Time. I am grateful for the winds’ whisperings because I hear in them an alert to be sure to embrace the Now, for it is fleeting. We still have plenty of time left, but we had better use it well, for it will not be around forever.

One final note: Thank you James. It's good to be back.

Time Flies

My last post talked about using my cell phone as an at-the-ready replacement for my lost elph. Turns out I'm not alone. One of the blogs I follow on the NY Times (Lens) has an excellent posting about cell-phone photos as an art form with tons of great submissions from readers. This shot is from Amelia & Mark's front window, where I've been staying. Thanks for putting me up guys!

Many people have asked if I feel strange to be back in New York. Same block, same building even! But no, it’s all very straight-forward and like when I lived here it was daily business: eating bagels, riding the subway, working the job I’ve had for ten years, annoying crowds on Bedford Avenue, subterranean studio, navigating (surfing, really!) the City’s complexities. It feels quite normal, really.

What does feel odd is being separated from my family and my home and all its comforts, even if many of them are still packed in boxes. I’m eager to get back to the projects I have begun back in Virginia. But no odd sentimental here-but-gone feeling I would have expected. I felt that way before I moved.

What is strange is the feeling that far more than three weeks have passed since we pulled up the stakes. That’s less time than I usually spend away during the typical summer. Maybe it’s because, as I just mentioned, my heart had moved quite some time ago. Maybe it’s because Time flows at different speeds; Hawking’s proposition that time flows in proportion to a body’s velocity. And my body has been in serious motion.

Interestingly, it’s not just my perception, everyone I talk to says the same thing,

“I can’t believe you only moved three weeks ago!”

I guess I’m living in a singularity.

Everything is all saturated

With the clock ticking I have a "bucket" of things to do and see before leaving.
On this day, it was Leandro Erlich's cool Swimming Pool at PS1, followed by a Solstice Celebration at Socrates.
Bucket metaphor courtesy of J-Dalt.

These last days before setting sail feel super-saturated. Each experience—a ride over the Williamsburg Bridge, a swim in the Met Pool, a drink with a friend, a trip to the health food store—feels like it could be the last of its kind. In some cases, it’s the literal truth. It is a blessing because it forces me to really pay attention, to take every interaction seriously. There’s no time for messing around.

The impending move is like a Sword of Damocles and it’s quite good really, forcing me to do—and say—the things I should have a long time ago. I too often chose to bide my time, luxuriating in the knowledge that whatever it was could always wait. Perhaps a riper moment would come along later. While each thing has its season, that can be a dangerous posture, an excuse that can be extended over and over until offerings are taken off the table, or we’re no longer in a position to accept them.

So it’s better to do things right away and not wait unless there is a very good reason.

Besides, an urgent life is richer, as I am now seeing so clearly. Small things take on a special value—an importance that is always there but too easily overlooked or taken for granted. Even my dreams have been really beautiful, rich and memorable. They make sleep an even greater pleasure than normal. Yet, when morning comes, I don’t want to miss a thing so I wake up super-alert and ready for another day and the sword that much closer. That’s how I live all the time, but the sword certainly clarifies things.

Maybe it’s not for everyone and I couldn’t always live like this but for now I like it. I am very excited about where I am going, but it also makes me happy that the place I am in makes me want to stay for one last song, one last dance, one last sunset…

Old vs New

The other night some friends and I were [inevitably] talking about the economy. Someone noted that one of our artstar friends is really hurting, has to sell one of his houses and is being taken to the cleaners. "Suddenly he's back to being the old X." As opposed to the new artstar X. Of course that got me thinking.

I'm kinds getting back into the old Citymouse/Countrymouse guy myself. Suddenly not having any $ is cool and what a refreshing change. It's like waking from a very boring dream and the sun is shining. I'm cooking yummy things (instead of ordering takeout). I'm entertaining (instead of going out). I'm kicking butt in the studio. I decided not to run Boston (in part for lack of funds) and suddenly I'm kicking @$$ on the track.

Part of me likes this new paradigm. It favors the creative, the agile. I was actually better off before the bubble. And oddly more successful. Now the boom's gone and the old ass-kicking me is cool with that.

Cocktails with Virgil

This time in Virginia has been a great source of inspiration--both visual an conversational.

After taking a day off to attend Margery’s memorial service at Springtree, I troopered over the mountains to Blacksburg to attend Suzi Gablik’s monthly salon.

Last summer I spent a week in a little cabin literally perched on the edge of the Catskills under the auspices of the Catskills Center for Conservation and Development. In that program, artists each get the cabin (with no running water but a huge waterfall) to themselves for a week to work, read, hike, or do whatever they want to do in total seclusion. One of the previous fellows had left Suzi’s Conversations Before the End of Time, which is a series of dialogs with artists, thinkers, and other visionaries. Although it was written two decades ago, the themes addressed (such as environmental degradation, civilization clash, and the war on dissent) therein are absolutely crucial today.

The artist who had left the book at the cabin suggested that those who follow read and discuss the book via the cabin’s log and a lively dialog ensued via notebook, with one artist leaving their impressions after the next. Conversations made quite an impression on me as it hit me at the right moment, as had some of her other books such as Has Modernism Failed? and Re-enchantment of Art so I wrote to the author to tell her so.

I was surprised to hear back right away in the form of a detailed and very expressive letter, in which she mentioned that she hosts an informal discussion/salon every month that I should visit some time. A year went by before I could link create a little free time while in Virginia and when her salon was taking place. My residency at VCCA was the perfect opportunity and allowed me to take a much-needed day off from the studio. It was a big day with Margery’s service, the salon, and about 5 hours of driving in between but it was well worth the trip.

It turns out that although she had hosted many salon’s before, it was another writer—Mary Campagna—who convinced Suzi to host this monthly gathering. She (Mary) was moved in a very similar way by both the content of Conversations and it’s unstructured dialectical form.

The attendees were varied, including writers, artists, thinkers, pilgrims, and a sociologist. Many points of view and a wide range of topics awakened me to many ideas and connections I had never imagined before. Topics like distance learning, cultural extinction, moral courage, and the essential energy of Life were tied together though by the conversational form itself.

Humans have the capacity to be shockingly destructive, but we also possess the ability to enlarge ourselves through conversation and collaboration and there was some high-level thinking going on in that circle of chairs. I feel very invigorated and galvanized. It reminded me how discussion can be fuel and how available it is—all it takes is a group of interesting people and perhaps a bottle of wine. I hope to take full advantage of the amazing minds around me here at VCCA and perhaps Cole and I will revive our old salons when we get back to New York. And I hope to revisit Suzi’s group sometime—maybe if/when we relocate to Virginia.

I plan to blog more about some of the topics we discussed, but in the meantime, you can get a sense of what Suzi’s about by reading her blog or by picking up some of her books, which are extremely influential, well-written and on-point.

Freebasing Credence

This annoying photo becomes hillarious when you read the interventions.
Click for a better view. The neighborhood's not gone yet...

I was sitting in Oslo [Northside] this afternoon working on the next installment of my Jeremy Blake remembrance when I overheard a conversation that was so Williamsburg, I just had to blog it.

The guy behind the counter has a friend who is an acupuncturist who sometimes uses harmonic tones with her needles. It makes perfect sense to me: I’ve spent my share of hours on the rehab table with an ultrasound wand on my arches or calves. Sound penetrates and loosens things up even better than a massage in some cases. I could imagine that the extremely targeted approach of acupuncture, combined with harmonics’ proven chemistry-altering properties could do wonders. There’s a whole literature on the practice.

Then he got to wondering about what you could do with a three-part bluegrass harmony, combined with acupuncture. The possibilities seem limitless right? Definitely spiritual if we’re talking Bill Monroe. I wouldn’t want to try his idea though: Gillian Welch. Sounds like a swift road to depression, or worse!

That kind of free-flowing and wide-ranging conversation almost makes me want to go back to being a barista. The good thing about living in Williamsburg is that chatter is always available without the appallingly low wages, scalding water, and early hours.