Life on the Edge

Eleven years ago while studying with Wendell Berry at Schumacher College, England, in a course entitled "Nature as Teacher", one of the texts we read was William Shakespeare's play "As You Like It". A defining moment for me came when the exiled Duke Senior talks of the advantages of living in a forest paradise (Act II, Scene 1). Here, he says, one "finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones and good in everything..." Defining for two reasons. One, that Shakespeare, four hundred hears ago, had a deep ecological understanding of the earth. Two, that it was possible for stones and trees to literally, as well as metaphorically, teach us something. My appreciation for Shakespeare deepened and I never again looked at a stone in the same way as before.

Today, Sunday, is the 101th journal entry for "Life at the Edge". To mark this special occasion, I have gone to the beach and placed 100 stones in a grid pattern to symbolise the previous 100 stories (mini sermons) presented over this past year. The grid represents the formal aspects of thinking through an event and organising it in a way that might make sense. The placement next to the water is to remind me that no matter how exquisite and "time consuming" my efforts might have been, eventually these stones/these stories, will be washed away or covered in sand and soon forgotten. The object lesson is to enjoy the moment of the writing and the behavioural process of being in that moment of writing or photographing and leave it at that. Remain humble without feeling insignificant. Tomorrow..... a new garden.

I've been in hiding. Solitary walks on frosty mornings have been the order of the day. Driving back late at night from the Dawn to Dusk Vigil at Parliament House a week ago, I could sense that my whole self was moving into shutdown mode. The previous month of totally throwing myself into the public arena, making myself available to the media, articulating the motivation and reasons for the vigil and holding the vision of its success daily, ended up exhausting me despite the best of physical and spiritual preparations. The vigil itself, no matter what its outcome, was going to take its toll. (Its success was in things unseen, its lack of success was in things thought to be seen.) The aftermath was that I was going to need some very private personal healing. I crawled into the cave of my home and refused to enter into any semblance of public engagement.

For five straight days, outside of tending to the Peace Fire and having my daily surf, I cherished the privacy of staying indoors and carving a little piece of myrtle wood to hold some sea shells, a seed and a sea horse. No music. No radio. No TV. Just hour after hour of contemplative rest. Slowly, with each tiny shaving of wood, I recharged the body, soothed the soul and nurtured the self. There was little desire to phone anyone, read the newspapers or go on line and deal with e-mails. There was no desire, whatsoever, to communicate with the general public.

Today, however, around fifteen university students of various departments came to Windgrove as part of an interdisciplinary course on the environment and the arts. I crawled out from underneath my self imposed shell and was refreshed by their freshness and collective desire to contribute, each in their own way, to the betterment of the world. We walked, we talked (well, mostly I did). We enjoyed the beauty that was in the day and the beauty (and necessity) of each other's company and support. Such open hearts. Such youthful exuberance to do right.

As they drove off I felt a new commitment to engage the public once again and, during the cycle of my life, do what I could to bring a more peaceful world into being. My only regret in the day came later as I wiped something off my cheek. I realised too late that I should have shaved.

One more light touch up with 600 grit sandpaper and a final coat of oil and the bench sculpture, "Christ and His Followers on the Sea of Galilee", will be finished. Whew. Six months of carving over a ten month period plus two more months of oiling. Symbolically, Christ is the "heart" stone. Placed in the center it radiates out compassion, tolerance and love. Whether we are Christians or not, doesn't matter. What does is that Christ's teachings of the heart need to be brought back into practice in this age of fear driven politics.

The other 18 stones represent the "followers", who are all of us. "Ye without sin cast the first stone" reminds us that we all have a shadow side and should therefore not rush into judgement. Instead, let us use our imperfect selves to build a world based on heart politics; where, instead of throwing stones at each other, we use these stones (ourselves) to build cathedrals of peace. Technically, this has been the most difficult sculpture I have ever attempted because of the complex interactions between so many stones. To achieve a simple Zen like feel to the sculpture, as though the stones just happened to fall naturally into place, requires, not only an eye for a constant visual check on the carving, but fingers with "eyes" in order to feel the emerging form. A steady awareness of what is unfolding and a quiet patience to allow it to unfold is what is needed throughout the whole process. The "care of duty" entrusted to me with this 2000 year old piece of huon pine does not allow for even one inattentive moment during the six months of carving. The whole exercise is basically that of developing and maintaining a reverential relationship between the wood and stones and myself.

Each encapsulated stone emerged out of the wood as slow as a budding lemon blossom. Pushing their way into being, each nudged against their neighbour in a way that allowed the unique individualness of each stone to remain within the balanced integrity of the whole. If this is beginning to sound too much like "art speak", forgive me. I just want to try and articulate a little of what went into the making of this piece. Art, to me, has a vital role to play in the healing of ourselves and the world. Through art we can gain a sense of our place in the world and a sense of our purpose. This purpose is aligned with service. We are all in the same boat, this earth. It behoves us to love it, to love ourselves and to love each other.

This very small, three quarter inch tall pile of wood dust on top of a wooden bench seat caught my attention today. Forget that it is caused by a tiny wood borer eating up through the belly of an aboriginal goanna sculpture carved in the central Australian desert. Forget that I have been attempting to get rid of these little buggers for the past five months. Forget that too many more of these “diggings” and the goanna will simply collapse when it can no longer hold itself together because of the thousands of pin holes riddling it. Instead, just look at the beautiful symmetry between the dust’s conical shadow within the light cone and how the grain of the wood radiates out from the dust pile as though it was intentionally placed there for maximum aesthetics. Notice, also, the warming golden colors. Doesn’t it all just take your breath away? This is one of those fleeting moments that bring respite to the day; when a whimsical, delicate piece of nature's art is created for the enjoyment of those aware and lucky enough to see it. Within two minutes, the sun moved the shadow along and the effective stage lighting was lost. Within three minutes, a heavy foot step caused the towering pile to collapse into just another not-so-good-looking pile. Within three and a half minutes, I was thinking again how to rid the goanna of its borers. But, for those few special minutes, the beauty behind the destruction took center stage. And, for this, I can only smile.

For over nine months I have been slowly working on a sculptural bench, "Christ and his followers on the Sea of Galilee", for a church minister in America. Eighteen stones loosely embedded in the wood will represent us humans; a heart shaped stone (compassion) in the middle will represent Christ. The basis of the concept for this piece comes from the Biblical quote: "Let ye without sin cast the first stone." Every human has a shadow side. My consistent prayer is that all of us humans can learn to work together, using ourselves (our stones) to build a foundation of love and trust throughout the world instead of throwing ourselves at each other with hatred and fear. What follows is a three minute speech I gave at "pub debate" last night in Hobart over the use of questionable tax payers money to fund the arts. Presently, in Tasmania there is a lot of debate centered around a government corporate enterprise, Forestry Tasmania, being a major sponsor of the Ten Days on the Island arts festival. Because Forestry Tasmania continues to clear fell old growth, ancient rainforests for wood chips and replant with monoculture plantations, many artists oppose what they view as governmental exploitation of the arts to propagandize the destruction of these forests. Three minutes is not sufficient to fully develope any sort of argument, but I hope you, the reader, can glean something from this speech. Ratbags -- three minutes -- Arts funding It seems that the managers of the arts and festival boards favour money over ethics. Lately, they have been trying to excuse their acceptance of tainted money by saying: “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”. By so doing they make superficial the great human quest to become a better person. I say: If you are going to quote the Bible, understand fully what you are quoting. Christ understood that all humans have a shadow side. And Christ would have understood that the paper to print the Bible comes from trees. But Christ would also say that paper made from clear felling old growth eco systems is a defilement of the divine creation. And Christ would have joined us artists to throw the money grubbers out of the sacred temple of tall trees. Jim Bacon, Robyn Archer and the 10 Day’s festival board might see the bagman as an indispensable part of the workings of the art world. But I say: "Not in Our Name.". The government wants to lure us in with a financial carrot. But we Tasmanians know that carrots, especially blue ones, are poison. Forestry sponsorship? Think twice. Here’s a biblical quote thal all should take to heart: "As ye sow so shall ye reap.". Why isn’t the foremost important aspect of 10 Days on the Island, not its funding, but its impact on the ethics and morality of the children and citizens of Tasmania? Playwight Henry Miller: “In any form of art, however trivial, there has to be a point of moral reference against which to gauge the action of our daily lives.” Tasmania shouldn’t be looking elsewhere for what constitutes world’s best practice. We should be the barometer by which the rest of the world judge their daily lives. Picasso said that art is not about decorating a wall. Art is war. It is not just entertainment. It is about changing the corrupt immorality of governments, corporations and society. It makes sense, therefore, that Tasmanian artists would become human shields protecting the forests from the actions of Forestry Tasmania. But, isn’t it all a stupid waste of time and talent on everyone’s part when artists have to be the human shields protecting the integrity of our arts festival from the actions of the festival board. Ten days on the Island should never have been a propaganda platform for the spin doctors to blind the public to the destructive excesses of their governments. In the end, it comes down to this for me. As a sculptor in wood, if I have to lose my source of material because of my outspoken stance against the mismanagement of our Tasmanian forests; if I fall foul of any arts grants board because of their alinement with government power brokers, then so be it. I will suffer the financial consequences because I would rather shoot off my mouth than shoot myself in the heart. If there is to be any “bottom line” to the festival, it has to be an ethical and moral one. Period. No debate.

Windgrove visitor, Stewart Brand (see March 6), has written: “Civilisation is revving itself into a pathologically short attention span. Some sort of balancing corrective to the short-sightedness is needed -- some mechanism or myth that encourages the long view and the taking of long-term responsibility, where the long term is measured at least in centuries.” His co-authored creation, the Millennial Clock, is a paradigm for the Long Now. My contribution to this discussion of sustainable living is the altar, “Generational Flow”. Stand before it, move into it. Expand out of a narrowing sense of present time and push its/your boundaries into deep time. Hold the stone and feel the ancient past. Hold the stone and feel the future grounded and certain. Hold the stone and hold the ova of all that have come and will come. Trace with your fingers the sine wave and hold your place in the continuum of time. Stroke the inside of each vessel and hold on to what they speak.

If I know intimately the stories of the ancestors (hear here, great great grandparents calling through my bones); if I know the heartbeat of the future to be (hear here, great great grandchildren calling back to me); --- and bow in gratitude to the one, while walking responsibly to the other--- this is appropriate living in the Long Now.

I'm taking a short break from my studio work to send out this blog to express my thanks for being part of an upcoming exhibition in Hobart called Future Perfect. When I go to bed at night my fingers go numb and my back and neck hurt from the awkward contortions my body has to get into in order to carve, but I fall asleep with a smile and a deep sense of satisfaction that what we are doing as a group is vitally important for the arts in Tasmania, for Tasmania's future, and in no small way, for peace in our forests. Personally speaking, I like what I see emerging from my studio and this would never have happened if I had not been asked to collaborate with Barbie Kjar and Heather Rose. Just the simple task of talking through various options with these two artists opened my mind to new possibilities of work that most likely would have remained hidden from me. For this I am thankful. But what I am most thankful for is the opportunity we artists have been given to express our moral, spiritual and political beliefs about the direction Tasmania can take into its future. This has excited me from the beginning and I have felt better about participating in this one exhibition than any exhibition in my life, group or solo. My sell out show in Philadelphia means what it says: I sold out. I sold out to the wealthy and to a system that sees art only as decoration, status, a collectors item. Any depth of meaning was lost behind the "name" of the artist and collector. I took my money and went back into my comfortable American life of denial to create only more objects of desire. In preparing for Future Perfect, I have been buoyed by the heart swelling of intention that what we are presenting to the public will be powerfully beautiful. But beautiful because our groups' overriding concern about the future vibrancy and quality of life on this wondrous island will make it so. I, myself, have been partly driven to do good just to refute the notion that those artists who oppose Forestry Tasmania as a sponsor of the 1080 on the Island festival are nothing more than a "motley bunch of greenies with no standing outside of Tasmania". Most importantly, though, I have been inspired to work long hours for the simple fact that I am proud to be one of the members of a coalition of visual artists and writers who love their island and who are willing to devote their energies and talents to help direct the public towards a deeply imaginative vision for this state. The arts cannot serve a more noble purpose.