When I first saw him at JKF International Airport he was just arriving from Qingdao, China. His beauty shocked me, perhaps because he came to me a fully formed five year old. Five is the most beautiful age, teetering between baby and boy, between natural innocence and devious charm. Perhaps his beauty was a matter of my own perception, a chromosomic gift given to grandparents as a reward for breeding. Maybe it was just that he was truly gorgeous; a heavenly glow haloing godly perfection. I saw him and I saw in my mind the ugly world he would be living in when he is my age--if the warnings of a catastrophic climate change are true. By then he may be migrating across a hostile landscape searching for food like a starving animal. I saw his beauty and I saw the earth burning at the same time. It was like a kiss and a slap in the face.
"THE SATURNS DEVOURING THEIR CHILDREN" was painted shortly after his father's birth. In the background I copied a small section of Goya's "SATURN DEVOURING HIS SON", based on a Roman myth of a God eating his children so he will not be overthrown by them. In front I painted myself as a loving father. Loving but also participating in the grand consumption that was devouring his future. I was a passive Saturn, innocently nibbling away at his share of natural resources trying not to be greedy but unable to stop myself.
New Mexico, Colorado and Nebraska where I grew up were part of the Big Sky Country. From soft grassy hills to crisp dried deserts the treeless lands were bordered by crystal blue skies on the distant horizon. In New York a vail of smoke and ash dropped over my eyes smudging the colors and blurring my focus. A toxic blend of nitrogen oxides and volatile gases lay limply on the city streets like an exhausted lover with its poisonous breath burning the lungs and stinging the eyes. Rivers, choked with oily wastes, chemicals, and debris were too poisonous to drink and even catching on fire. The environmental degradation was accepted as a sign of success; industry was thriving, the economy was booming, and everyone had jobs.
The ecological crisis reached the tipping point in the late 60s when activists created the first environmental movement which resulted in the passing of the Clean Air Act in 1970. Now the air is clear and the Hudson is as clean as it can get because the government took control. The battle was won because the enemy could be seen. Smoke had been belching from dirty cars and factory smoke stacks. Oil slicks, luminous chemicals and garbage floated on the rivers all combining to make the world ugly. But now, here in the Hudson Valley, life looks good. The enemy, CO2, is invisible. The battle is for the mind with climate activists on one side, climate deniers on the other and the mushy middle in between. I was part of the believers in climate change who are carrying on with life with no impact on the discussion. ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth." Revelation 3:15-16
The ecological crisis reached the tipping point in the late 60s when activists created the first environmental movement which resulted in the passing of the Clean Air Act in 1970. Now the air is clear and the Hudson is as clean as it can get because the government took control. The battle was won because the enemy could be seen. Smoke had been belching from dirty cars and factory smoke stacks. Oil slicks, luminous chemicals and garbage floated on the rivers all combining to make the world ugly. But now, here in the Hudson Valley, life looks good. The enemy, CO2, is invisible. The battle is for the mind with climate activists on one side, climate deniers on the other and the mushy middle in between. I was part of the believers in climate change who are carrying on with life with no impact on the discussion. ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth." Revelation 3:15-16
My two boys grew up in a Rivertown on the Hudson River north of New York City.There is a pleasant wooded park next to the shore with a small sandy beach complete with seashells and driftwood. The boys played there often, wading into the river trying to be careful not to let any of it touch their lips. A local fisherman once gave a demonstration for their class there, in his net were some small an anchovies , one of which he ate raw. He then offered one to the class to try. My son ate it and the rest of the class was shocked. Not only because my son ate a raw fish but because they believed fish from the Hudson were poisonous.
That was thirty years before I saw my pure, uncontaminated grandson and was consumed with self loathing, loathing for the whole human race. All the poison in our environment were made to make me, and others like me, happy. Who knows what toxic combination from the periodic table are in my TV set, iPhone, car, non stick cookware and relaxed fit clothes not to mention the piles of perfect vegetables arranged like sculptures in every grocery store in my neighborhood. There is me picking out the most perfect red peppers, the cheeriest tomatoes and the most sophistically packaged organic milk. When I was seventy I bought an air conditioner, the worst of the worst. I was tired of being hot. Fuck it, we are all doomed anyway. The world is going to end up with bleached coral, piles of rotting fish and dying everything.
That was thirty years before I saw my pure, uncontaminated grandson and was consumed with self loathing, loathing for the whole human race. All the poison in our environment were made to make me, and others like me, happy. Who knows what toxic combination from the periodic table are in my TV set, iPhone, car, non stick cookware and relaxed fit clothes not to mention the piles of perfect vegetables arranged like sculptures in every grocery store in my neighborhood. There is me picking out the most perfect red peppers, the cheeriest tomatoes and the most sophistically packaged organic milk. When I was seventy I bought an air conditioner, the worst of the worst. I was tired of being hot. Fuck it, we are all doomed anyway. The world is going to end up with bleached coral, piles of rotting fish and dying everything.
Buried beneath the crust of an uninhabitable earth will be the compressed layer of the extinct human species, from the space explorers to the first primitive birth, flattened like a page in a book. Such is the prediction of the coming Climate apocalypse and I am the murderer watching my grandson walking to the execution chamber to pay for my crime.
My grandson's name is J. Just the letter J. That is the way his father wanted it. I felt I should honor his existence with the skills that I have, however, a drawing, even a painting, did not seem substantial enough to express his importance to me. I decided to make a sculpture; the latest member of the human species on top of the pile. A kind of time sandwich.
Art is the method that allows me to use all the capabilities I have, from the first inspiration to the craft required to bring it into being. It is a journey of exaggerated passion from sparks of euphorias to crushing despair. Sculpting takes practice, knowledge of materials, a natural inclination for the three dimensions and patience. I was lacking all of those traits but this was the project I had chosen. I believed that with sheer determination I could go beyond the limits of myself for the sake of J and perhaps produce a piece that possessed some amount of beauty, the only evidence of the depth of my feeling.
The working surface by this time was not stable, resulting in continuous crumbling and repairing. It reminded me of this country with its infrastructure old and in decline. Especially compared to the vibrant newness of Qingdao, China where J was born. He was a half and half boy then, split between two superpowers. Now he is all American living here in the new old country.
The working surface by this time was not stable, resulting in continuous crumbling and repairing. It reminded me of this country with its infrastructure old and in decline. Especially compared to the vibrant newness of Qingdao, China where J was born. He was a half and half boy then, split between two superpowers. Now he is all American living here in the new old country.
J, this is the best I could do. I know sculptors who could have knocked this off in an afternoon. I can't remember number of days it took before finally giving up and excepting what I had. I captured your face though, a victory for sure for me. There is a moment when making a portrait when it seems to come alive with the person's spirit. The sensation can send shivers through my body. Even now, looking at the photo of his sculpted face, there is a tingling in my chest. The sculpture needed to be precious because I had decided to destroy it. A gesture to symbolize future loss of your world. I wanted to share the pain, emotionally at least. I could have simply whipped myself as a form of penance; but destroying the art I had struggled so hard on was more appropriate for me. What good would art be in the future anyway? If we really do make the earth unlivable every creative effort since the cave paintings would be pointless. It seems pointless to continue to make art now. If we are doomed why wait until the very end to give up?
In 2014, when J first arrived, Climate Change was still a game I was playing, along with everyone else I knew. Flashes of fear and certain doom hit us all periodically and we would state emphatically to each other that we had to stop burning oil. But other than a few pictures of melting arctic sea ice, a bad hurricane season and an occasional out of control forest fire everything in the Hudson valley seemed fine. Our life was comfortable, extremely comfortable and it is hard to maintain fear when life is so comfortable. Sculpting you with plans to destroy you was a performance where I tried to imitate the perceived agony of your future for myself. Only I was not destroying you, I was destroying my creative effort. It may be an over generalization but all artists love what they create. It is their material soul. Our civilization loved what it has built, our material soul, and it may have to be destroyed too.
But, I am a lier, destroying my creation and photographing the process means I did not destroy it at all. Posting them as I am now means I do not have what it takes to accept the consequences of my life, to accept my own anonymity, to accept the pain. As far as I can tell none of us are. I did feel a chill as the scraping began. I achieved that much at least. It happened quickly. An afternoon's work.
In 2014, when J first arrived, Climate Change was still a game I was playing, along with everyone else I knew. Flashes of fear and certain doom hit us all periodically and we would state emphatically to each other that we had to stop burning oil. But other than a few pictures of melting arctic sea ice, a bad hurricane season and an occasional out of control forest fire everything in the Hudson valley seemed fine. Our life was comfortable, extremely comfortable and it is hard to maintain fear when life is so comfortable. Sculpting you with plans to destroy you was a performance where I tried to imitate the perceived agony of your future for myself. Only I was not destroying you, I was destroying my creative effort. It may be an over generalization but all artists love what they create. It is their material soul. Our civilization loved what it has built, our material soul, and it may have to be destroyed too.
But, I am a lier, destroying my creation and photographing the process means I did not destroy it at all. Posting them as I am now means I do not have what it takes to accept the consequences of my life, to accept my own anonymity, to accept the pain. As far as I can tell none of us are. I did feel a chill as the scraping began. I achieved that much at least. It happened quickly. An afternoon's work.
Dubuque,Iowa was a beautiful tree lined town in 1968. It streets were covered with canopies of Dutch elm trees arching over us like the comforting arms of a loving mother. The beauty was breathtaking no matter how many times I drove through those tunnel of leaves. In 1968, Dutch elm disease killed them all in one summer; stealing the soul of the town; including several trees in the two acres of wooded land my brother had recently purchased and moved his mobile home on. He lived there with our mother whom he had invited to live with him. That is how she wound up in the country on a hillside overlooking the broad Swiss Valley with dead trees to deal with. I was living there during the summer between semesters at the University of Iowa. With every tree surgeon and handy man with saw leveling the thousands of dead trees in Dubuque we were pretty much on our own. She was sixty two years old and I was a skinny kid of twenty two. We decided we would cut them down ourselves.
Taking turns with the axe we chopped a V on the side of the tree in the direction we wanted it fall. With my mom on one side of a two handled buck saw and myself on the other we rhythmically sawed through from the opposite side until it fell. We had a elm wood campfire every single night for the whole summer. The best summer I could have had with my mother. She was a very quiet woman. We did not talk much but we worked well together.
The bright yellow flames eating the wood was so mesmerizing to watch that I stared mindlessly for hours each night until exhaustion drove me to bed. The wood dissolving into flickering wavelengths of light put me into a deep, comforting trance. Most likely the same trance humans have been in for the last 350,000 years. Last week, by a rented lakeside cabin, I build a campfire and sat in its soothing glow, A glow that may have lured us all to our doom with its tantalizing carbon content.
In 2014 I lit a butane torch, adjusted the flame to its hottest blue and began burning.
Taking turns with the axe we chopped a V on the side of the tree in the direction we wanted it fall. With my mom on one side of a two handled buck saw and myself on the other we rhythmically sawed through from the opposite side until it fell. We had a elm wood campfire every single night for the whole summer. The best summer I could have had with my mother. She was a very quiet woman. We did not talk much but we worked well together.
The bright yellow flames eating the wood was so mesmerizing to watch that I stared mindlessly for hours each night until exhaustion drove me to bed. The wood dissolving into flickering wavelengths of light put me into a deep, comforting trance. Most likely the same trance humans have been in for the last 350,000 years. Last week, by a rented lakeside cabin, I build a campfire and sat in its soothing glow, A glow that may have lured us all to our doom with its tantalizing carbon content.
In 2014 I lit a butane torch, adjusted the flame to its hottest blue and began burning.
After the woman was burned to ash I burned the hard wood she was built on. What is left has been hanging on our living room wall ever since barely noticed. The emotional storm I felt during its creation has passed. Life continues on as usual. Maybe a crisis will never happen or maybe billions will die. I will never know. Or, maybe I will. The last decade has shown dramatic changes, the next decade could be epic.
In the position where her womb had been, I had carved a fetus. I covered it with a gold wax which makes it too shiny and I will most likely torch it back to its original condition.
In the position where her womb had been, I had carved a fetus. I covered it with a gold wax which makes it too shiny and I will most likely torch it back to its original condition.