If I have an idea and the metal has another idea, the metal wins. Whenever I make something, part of it comes from me and the rest of it comes from somewhere else; there is a thing that wants to get made, and my role is to usher it from the realm of the unseen to the realm of the seen. Or maybe nothing really starts with me, and all I am is that vehicle of transmission. How can I tell?
As I work, sometimes words or poems or stories will arise, and influence what I’m doing. They may enhance the experience of an object, but at the same time they are irrelevant. The object is itself, with the story or without the story. In the end, when the ushering is complete, I only ask that people look. What they take away is their business.
There is a space between light and dark, waking and sleeping, between oxygen and carbon dioxide. Poised in that space, without having to be one thing or another, we can feel the moment when the breath changes from exhale to inhale, when the tide goes slack as it switches from flood to ebb. In this pause, we can allow ourselves to open our eyes. We are suspended, and there is nothing to fear.
These things are in all of us.
I am often overwhelmed by the infinite ephemeral beauties of the breathing earth, the awe of living on this planet, and the destruction we wreak upon it every day. It’s a good thing I have a sense of humor.