† December 9, 2008

 A Letter to Ol' Saint Nick
(or all I want for Christmas is....)

     I could save myself and Nick some time here, for my Christmas wish is contained in the action embedded within one simple word.  Respect.

     Nevertheless, I will elaborate as to why I have narrowed my Christmas wish list to this small word.  To put it bluntly, I feel that all the world's ails could be alleviated if we as humans would simply put respect into action within our daily lives.  A simple question we could ask ourselves before we choose to perform an action which involves another or others would be... how would I feel if someone did what I am about to do to me or us?  Example:  George could have asked (before he dropped the bombs) how would I feel if some outside force executed shock and awe on my Texas ranch, obliterating my wife and daughters?  But of course, he obviously did not ask himself that question and we all know how that turned out.  Then again, that's the bigger (not to be confused with the Big) picture and I wish to make my point of how respect can be our saving grace through my own experience.  The only way I can do this is to go into areas where respect has not been put into practice,  or perhaps it flows out of my desire for Self Respect.

     This process of sharing my experience with disrespect does present a quandary of sorts.  For if I am to be honest, truthful and forthright, I would not want someone to present their version of the truth (with regard to me) online for all to see.  Then again, one good turn deserves another and vice versa.  In that lies our human dilemma... and what to do?  If I just stay quiet, nothing will change and if I speak up, I run the risk of just making things worse.  So, with all things considered, I have a choice to make.  These days, keeping quiet about disrespect, injustice and not speaking my truth has not changed anything, so... "I may as well jump".  Sad that it comes down to a David Lee Roth quote but then again, I have found truth in the strangest places and in those moments of clarity I see it everywhere and in everything.

     Ready, set, here we go...

~

     My most recent battle with disrespect has presented itself through my own family unit.  Family units seem to be a common place to find it.  For some reason, when it comes to biologically genetically connective relationships, modes of behavior are expected and tolerated of us which we would not demand of a stranger.  I find this strange, but no less true.

     I have been writing back and forth with an old friend from our Sedona travels and some of his emails are quite good.  I expressed to him that he should do more with his words saying, "Ever consider publishing some of what you write in email, that will eventually return to pixel reform?"  To which he replied,  "... what’s pixel reform?"  In answer to your query Joseph, what I mean by pixel reform is this.  Emails are so temporary and transient.  They are read by the individual, then sit in your inbox only to inevitably end up in the delete folder, eventually to be reborn into another form of binary code.  I realize this process to be the essence and a symbol of life itself, but sometimes you want to make a painting which may last a bit longer, like say... a few hundred years.  Others could benefit from its view.  So with that thought in mind, I am going to share a recent email exchange I have had with my brother.  The final one (after receiving no birthday wish from him) I wrote on his birthday, spending all day producing it, only to receive no reply and the nagging suspicion that it was simply ignored and unread.  If it is one thing I truly hate doing, it is wasting my time, of which I have a limited supply.  This is why I prefer to write an online journal to express myself.  My thoughts and efforts seem less wasted when I consider that others may benefit from my expression of truth.  I am a great believer in killing two, even three or four birds with one stone, if it is at all possible.  I guess you could call me a conservative liberal, if a label is required.

     My latest brotherhood battle began when I received a dvd in the mail, which came with a note stating that he wished to share this with me, because he loved me and my family.  Now... as Peter Tosh has said, "There can be no peace without justice."  It is also true to say, there can be no love without respect... or for that matter, forgiveness without regret.  When someone cannot see that they have wronged you, all your forgiveness is (to quote John Lennon) like... "Shoveling smoke with a pitchfork in the wind".  A tiring, futile task... indeed.

     Moving on...  This was not the first time I had received one of these disks which my bro thought I needed to see.  There was "The Secret" (which I am sure has its merits) but I have come to the understanding that the truth is no secret and has been with us since the dawn.  Perhaps that was the secret contained within "The Secret".  I wouldn't know.  Not only because I had no desire to delve into yet another path to truth, but also because it would not play on my system.  Then there was the truth about the Aliens and some galactic war supposedly in progress within the Universe.  I've seen the X-Files and real life strange objects in the sky, but I am not inclined to know who these visitors may be, or whether they practice the same sort of stupid games we humans seem unable to transcend.  I would hope those who can transverse the galaxies would have conquered the dualistic failing of disrespect called war... but who knows?  Not I.  The latest disk (an addendum to a previously sent disk which I did watch...) was something called "Zeitgeist".

     Now I have my conspiratorial suspicions of what goes on in this world.  As I have mentioned through another journal entry, those towers did seem to fall like some sort of demo job.  As far as the planes which went down in Pennsylvania and the Pentagon, where exactly did the parts of those planes disintegrate to?  Another dimension?  Also, when I watch the Zapruder film, J.F.K's head definitely moves back and to the left, leading one to assume he was shot from the front, not from behind.  And of Area 51 and the crash of a weather balloon in Roswell, I have my questions.  But shit, this Zeitgeist movie and its fundamentalist view of the absolute truth of reality for everyone on this planet, please...  There is only one truth I know for certain.  Fuck taxes, the only truth is... we are all going to die.  That said, I am sure some will argue this absolute preordained fact of birth.  The essence of human nature is the ability to justify or reject anything and everything.

      Here is where we find ourselves.  Writing and reading an open book with nothing but blank pages which will one day end.  Tell me, how will we ever find common ground when we insist on pushing on others the pages of fictional books written by strangers.  "The Jewish book of fairy tales" as Bill Maher calls the bible, has produced more division and fear than any Stephen King novel ever has.  Zeitgeist like that old book, is just the newest version of the same phenomenon inevitably leading to the same end.  From my experience with it, this is what I see.  Now I will share with you how it came to me.

     As I mentioned, it came in the mail.  At the time I was busy living my life, as we are all prone to do.  In fact, I was once again really living my life, working on a painting which has been in the works for ten years or more.  The more I work on it, the more it speaks to me, the more I see my reality.  Wow... those moments of inspired creation are precious.  When those moments come around the last thing you want to do is disrupt them through outside influence not of your choosing.  But my brother insisted.

     Having put Zeitgeist aside to view it sometime when it suited my work schedule, I had not watched it yet.  Then one day out of the blue, my bro came over unannounced.  I had written "A Common Thread" (journal entry which touched on brother issues of the past).  He said he had read it.  When I asked what he felt about it he said, "...it helped me to understand you better." or something to that effect.  It was an ambiguous statement, not unlike when someone calls your painting "interesting", which leaves one wondering what they mean by that.  I didn't inquire further into what he meant by his statement.  But being that we all write our own books and wear our own set of colored glasses, I had my suspicions of what he thought.  He wanted to watch Zeitgeist with me, but I told him that Stefanie wanted to see it and that I would watch it with her later.

     Sometime later, I got this email from my brother.

~

November 10, 2008 8:10 PM

Hi Pate,

I was wondering if you had a chance to view the movie and if you did, what you thought about it.  I knew about the dealings of the Federal Reserve but this documentary made it even clearer.
I also found a Dutch link on U-tube today that shows a clip of the Australian Prime Minister and Stephen Harper both barking out the very same speech concerning Iraq, two days apart.......it was word for word.
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=L8YwJC_nBgw it's worth the wait.
As you know, I'm passionate about understanding the lies and deception that are coming at us from all directions. These lies go so deep and were conceived so many centuries ago, that they have become the truth.
It's sometimes a scary place to visit because it's so dark but knowing who we are not, is part of finding out, who we are. I felt it was an important film and you're important to me, so I wanted to give you the opportunity to see it.

Love,
John

~

     With his promptings and insistence, Stefanie and I took the time to watch it.  To be fully honest and having viewed the previous Zeitgeist movie, I watched it with this thought in mind, 'I wonder if this version will have anything negative to say about Barack Obama?'  It didn't let me down.  Not that I wanted to see Obama trashed as just another political hack, but that is what it did.  I was pretty well done watching it by then.  But I needed to see that part of it again, so I tried to rewind, which brought it back to the start and it had no sections menu.  So to respect my brothers wishes that I watch it, in order to give him my honest opinion, I had to go through the whole thing by fast forwarding.  Dvd's don't fast forward very fast when you have to catch where you left off.

     After seeing the Ron Paul election sign come forth, complete with (what sounded to me like) a chorus of angels singing, we gave it the benefit of the doubt and kept watching because there was supposed to be a positive element at the end of this version.  I was not impressed with the answers provided through the Venus Project, of money being the root of all evil.  I've heard that one before and as far as I can see, there needs to be some sort of common currency exchange in order for us to trade our talents and wares.  Trading paintings for food can only go so far.  Sure, I could grow my own food, and I do do most things around the house myself, but you know, sometimes...  Technology can not possibly be the answer to all of our problems, which is what the Venus Project professed.  All you need do is look at the U.S. electoral system of voting machines to know that pencil technology would most likely still serve best.  Besides all that, I have been to Sedona and I've seen this shit firsthand.  There are a thousand or more charlatans and salesmen standing between you and the red rocks of power.  The trick is to cut out the middleman if you want to feel their essence under your feet.  And on top of all that, the general vibe of the Zeitgeist movie had an air of, THIS Is THE Truth.  And that just reminded me of those annoying people who knock on the door, Watchtower in hand.  Or my former born again neighbor, who could not see that a wagon wheel needs more than one spoke to work properly.  That was how I tried (unsuccessfully) to explain to her how I see life.  The outside of the wheel is where we live or play.  The hub is where we are.  And the spokes are the paths which lead to the center, or God, if you will.

     One other issue regarding this Zeitgeist movie which struck me as rather portentous, was its production.  The creators use static, choppy editing and intentionally bad production values much like the horror movie "The Ring".  This struck me as not only ironic but rather ominous.  For those who have not seen The Ring it is about a video tape which gets passed around and if you watch it, in seven days you die.  Having made that connection when I started watching it, I was a bit worried that I was going to end up in Jonestown or something by the time it was done.  Now having watched it, I would say my initial reaction wasn't far off.

     With all that, I wrote my brother back.  The thing which bugged me the most after watching Zeitgeist was that it was as if my bro didn't even read what I had written.  It was like he read my personal expression of experience, "A Common Thread", with his own predisposed prejudice.  Once again, there was that feeling of shoveling smoke with a pitchfork in the wind when it came to getting my point across.  It was my point, not me pushing some vague concept of another's view of some Zeitgeist reality or Venus Project utopian computer generated dream image.  But my view of my reality.  The blank pages of my own book, which I had written.  To further my suspicions that he had not made it to the end of "A Common Thread", was when I asked him questions like, "Did you click on the picture of Dr. Nick?"  Only to have him look at me blankly, seeming to have no knowledge that there was a picture of Dr. Nick at all.  Perhaps he had no idea who Dr. Nick is, being he is above such pettiness and cartoon characters.  "Bye bye everybody."

     I wrote an email, throwing back what he had tossed my way.

~

November 12, 2008 10:43 AM

Hi John

We watched it.  And it helped me to understand you better.
Fundamentalism comes in all forms.

Pate

~

     To which he replied.

~

November 12, 2008 8:14 PM

Fundamentalism,
A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.

I know fundamentalism comes in many forms and one of them is the "Main Stream Media".  I would say that the majority of the populace gets their hot air from there.
Anything outside that box is considered a conspiracy, a cult, to radical and now by homeland security standards, a terrorist.  They thought of everything.
I was hoping you would see this documentary with an open heart and mind but it sounds like you saw it as an extension of, what's wrong with John.

"Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance". Albert Einstein

~

     To which I replied.

~

November 13, 2008 9:52 AM

I don't want to argue about this.
I am ignorant, we will leave it at that.

~

     As I had mentioned, I was happily working on my painting, reaching spaces I had not felt in years, when these emails started and I just didn't want to get dragged down into this crap.  I had tasted it many a time before and knew it left nothing but a bitter aftertaste.  Then came  November 27, my birthday.  My parents came over and with their presence my feelings of clarity sank.  This too was an historically familiar sensation.  Try as I might, I could not hold onto those higher realms of consciousness.  My happy thoughts had deserted me.

     The issue with my mother when I am not getting along with my brother is that she wants it to be different.  I understand this wish, and to be fully honest, I share in this wish.  Having lost a daughter, she would like her two remaining sons to get along.  Trouble is, I have made a commitment to self respect which can only be upheld through truth.  I cannot live in pretence.  I cannot paste on a smile, when my guts churn.  When something is off, I feel it.  Then the choice is, do I express this feeling or do I try to pretend it away.  Which isn't really a choice at all.

     With my parents watching TV and finding myself laying on my bed running things through my mind on how I managed to get to this point of impasse, with a nudge from Stefanie I made the choice to break the barrier.  I got up, turned the TV off and let my passions run free.  I voiced my view of the sibling gridlock.  I made it clear that I was not personally responsible and could do nothing to change it.  Sorry Mam.  The vibe moved somewhat, but hey, she is our mother... I understand.  Then again, it was my birthday and what kind of gift was this?  I turned 49 going on 50, and feeling comfortable about my impending physical demise, the last thing I wanted to waste my time on was going down into the sewer of familial insufferabilities.  I've been there.  More than a few times.  Having this Zeitgeist deal pushed at me is just the cherry on top of a lifetime of my brother putting me in insufferable positions with regard paid only to himself.  I will not be guilted into going to another ex-girlfriend's wedding.  Followed by years of endless backstabbing.  I refuse to go to lengths for others that they would never go to, or expect of themselves.  As the man said, "Enough!"  Color these words of mine with whatever palette you like, but if you should choose to see it from my perspective you would see it as simply the act of self-respect.  For if I don't respect myself, what will I have to pass on to my daughter?

     Previous to my birthday I had written my brother's son an email asking him to read "A Common Thread".  My only hope was that he would understand my point of view regarding why I left the scene so many years ago.  In response, he had sent me a note wishing me a happy birthday and said he was halfway through the journal entry.  From my brother himself, I received nothing.  To be honest, it was what I expected and he didn't let me down.

     It was then that I decided I would give it one last shot.  My brother's birthday falls on November 30.  I spent his birthday writing a long and involved email explaining how I felt.  Did he read it?  I don't know.  One thing I do know is that I do not have time to waste.  The words I produced that day through an email to my brother cannot just end up in a delete folder.  This is why I prefer to write a journal.  At least the words can serve others if they are not welcomed by the intended recipient.  Here is the gift I gave my brother.  My efforts and words will not be wasted.

~

    That was November 30th.  I have not heard back from him* or my nephew.  I did write back to my nephew saying that I thought Christmas would most likely be a non-event because his father was presently pissed at me.  And I understand why my brother's son would want to stay out of these discussions (if you can call them that).  After all, my brother is his father and I suppose that's where his loyalties should lay.  I feel the same when it comes to my parents.  Since they moved to their condo (further away from us) I have made it a practice to call them every morning.  My Mam turns 82 this December and the last thing I want to have to live with is not having spoken to her or my father, should the fateful day arrive.  Some may choose to look at this new practice of a son honoring his parents through cynical eyes, seeing my actions as just wanting to win their favor.  At times I can feel this coming my way from directions familiar.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  The truth is, I have had a friend die at home alone but for his dog's ever presence.  He stayed that way for days and when I think of that, I regret not having been in more direct contact with him.  And so it is, I understand loyalty to parents and will continue to call everyday until the day.

     Calling my parents is a sign of respect.  They have given me more then I can ever give back.  I'm trying to get them to stop thanking me every time for calling because from where I stand, I see it as a son's duty to do so.  But I will say this, it is interesting to see the phenomenon of... in giving respect, respect is given.  After taking the time to write that long note to my brother and not being given the same respect in return, he left me with no option but to disregard any feeling he may have concerning this journal entry.  I once wrote a book about all this.  It was 300 or so pages long.  Long before his family fell apart, I attempted to share it with him, sending it through email in private.  He sent it back (which I can only assume was supposed to be some sort of message) unread.  That's his way of communicating with me.  After this Zeitgeist crap, I give up.

     With all this writing, a song from the eighties has been running through my brain.  When I get accused of being manipulated like some unconscious drone hooked to the main stream media, I can not let it stand.  And by the way, that was the title of that book written what seems so many years ago, Stand!  My painting bearing the same name was to be the cover.  The one who should have read it, never took the time.  Anyway, here are some lyrics which spoke to me long before Zeitgeist was ever even thought of.  It is from an album called "Mind Bomb".  The band is "the The" and the singer-lyricist is Matt Johnson along with those listed as "the prophets" in the credits for this song, Eller, Marr and Palmer.

~

"If the real Jesus Christ were to stand up today.
He'd be gunned down cold by the C.I.A.
Oh, the lights that now burn brightest behind stained glass.
Will cast the darkest shadows upon the human heart.
But GOD didn't build himself that throne.
GOD doesn't live in Israel or Rome.
GOD doesn't belong to the 'yankee dollar'.
GOD doesn't plant the bombs for Hezbollah.
GOD doesn't even go to church.
And GOD won't send us down to Allah to burn.
No, GOD will remind us what we already know.
That the human race is about to reap what it's sown."

† Armageddon Days Are Here, (again). by the The

~

     There is only one thing I would change in that refrain and that is... the real Jesus Christ would be gunned down by the Fundamentalist Born Agains.  For if he ever was to comeback for an encore, he would most likely return as a married gay man to teach them a lesson.  Aside from that, those words of yesterday stand today, and what have we sown?  Well here is yet another point of contention that I have with my brother.  He seems to be under the impression that we humans are not responsible for global warming and climate change.  When he watched "An Inconvenient Truth" he told me it made him feel bad and that it was just another fear based lie brought to us by a politician.  He like others continue to say (despite a thousand or more scientists to the contrary, David Suzuki just one among them) that it is all a natural process.  To believe that the crap we have been sending into the atmosphere (for what, a couple of hundred years) has had no effect on the earth is just ridiculous.  I just watched something on TV (yes, that's TV, the dreaded medium) called the "Tipping Point" which said the polar ice cap could be completely melted during the summer by the year 2012.  These 'scientists of ignorance' (as seen on TV) said something like this has not happened in approximately 16 or so odd million years.  What kind of natural cycle is that?  Let's all just abdicate all responsibility and fly off to the Venus Project... Jesus.

     I like TV.  Let's see, what are a few things I would I have missed without it.  The Simpsons, Star Trek, The X-Files, Weeds, F1 Racing (Specifically this year when Lewis Hamilton finally won the Championship for Mclaren and became the first black champ in history in the same year Obama did the same in his field.), Millennium, Six Feet Under, Kitchen Nightmares, Countless Good and Bad Movies, Real Time with Bill Maher, The Dog Whisperer, Obama's speech on race, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, The 2008 U.S. Election, Who Killed The Electric Car, Nature, Buddha Boy, The Nature of Things, Popular Mechanics for Kids, The Mythbusters, Sesame Street, Jack Cafferty, The Point (by Harry Nilsson), lots of laughs and most recently a really good documentary narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio called "The 11th Hour".  I recommend that people check it out, there are some real answers to our human dilemma there.  I specifically like what a Native American (can't recall his name) said at the end of it, "The Earth has all the time in the world.  We don't."  Now that's the truth, because without us she will keep spinning but without her we're cooked.  That's of course, until our sun goes super nova which will fry the whole works.

     Now before I get accused of only focusing on the positive aspects of TV, I should mention some stranger things I have seen lately.  With the recent Indian terror drama getting unending coverage on CNN, I was struck by how no one noticed how inappropriate it was when going to commercial, traveling to India was being sold.  One moment you're watching the horror as the hotel burns, the next, someone is singing ... "In-cred-ible In-dia".  Or how about this CNN moment.  "Planet in Peril brought to you by Dow Chemical."  I kid you not.  And of course there is usually nothing on but oil company commercials professing a sixty year domestic supply with no consequence whatsoever.  I don't know why no one else other than the Punk'd dude Ashton Kutcher has mentioned that perhaps the car companies should get their bailout from the oil companies since they seem to have more money than T. Boone Pickens these days.  Besides, aren't big oil and big cars in cahoots already?  It's a symbiotic relationship made in heaven creating hell on earth.  Or I always like it when the news presents yet another study on rising cancer rates and causes.  Just this morning I was presented with one, and of course the leading cause is our favorite scapegoat tobacco.  I am not saying smoking is a healthy thing to do and would not want my daughter to start but please...  The planet in peril is brought to us by Dow Chemical.  We all live in a man made toxic environment the likes of which the earth has never seen.  To put it all on tobacco is to ignore cancerous fish and beluga whales (as just a couple of examples) who have never smoked or inhaled it secondhand.  We have bigger problems and like it or not, we are all responsible for it because the only way they can sell it is when we buy it.

~

       Well it's time to wrap up this gift or Christmas wish list.  Somehow with my journal entry called "A Common Thread" I seemed to drift into areas of political Palinism and somewhat lost what that common element was.  In that entry it was disrespect, the scoundrels who practice it and how they all seem to get ahead in this world, while decent people just get the shit.  I hope with this entry regarding respect, the tables are turning.  Before you can follow the commandment of "love thy neighbor" you must respect thy neighbor because if you don't, all the professed love in the world is just pretentious vapor.  It's not real.  So let's get real, because time is short and there is none to waste.

     So... will Santa give me my gift of respect?  I don't know because this year I've been naughty and nice.  All I know for certain is, give me respect and you will get it in return.  Try to use me as a doormat and you will find that I'm not there.  You will have to find somewhere else to wipe the shit you stepped in off your boots.

~

     How I came to my view of Barack Obama was through a personal journey.  After the Bush years which seemed to solidify the generalized view of all politicians being nothing but power hungry fucks out for themselves and their cronies, I had all but lost faith in humanities sense of decency.  I'm sure I am not the only one to have felt this way.  Then with the primaries making their way into my home through the tube, this Obama dude seemed to be making headway.  Still suspicious, I made a personal decision to set aside my generalized view of politicians and give this guy a listen.  Reverend Wright made his words questioning America's motives felt, and it seemed this new guy would go down.  Strange how such a seemingly turn of negative events should make me look at this man even closer.  Then it was just a quirk of fate that I switched on the TV catching the moment when Obama was to give his speech on race.  I have learned to trust these quirks of fate and not to judge the Universe on how it presents them to me.  TV is not a bad thing in itself, it's what you tune into which makes the difference.  That day I chose to set my political prejudice aside and heard words my heart had longed to hear.  More then that, I watched a true wizard working magic that I until then had not seen out of a politician.  He turned a negative, positive.  True alchemy, the likes of which this world has not seen since the days of Gandhi and King.  Following that day, I was hooked and if that makes me a putz, so be it.  The election of Barack Obama as the 44th U.S. President is a changing of the guard.  A long overdue one at that.  If nothing else, I hope it is a symbol of a world where respect, decency and common sense will reign.

Merry Christmas Everyone
 Yours with all due Respect ~ Petrus

~

*Adden-dum: † December 10, 2008.  Following the initial publication of this journal entry my brother sent me a reply to the email I had sent him.  He didn't appreciate his birthday gift.  In reply I asked him not to contact me anymore and that he respect my request.  He didn't show me the respect I asked for.  No surprise.**

**Second Amendment: † December 13, 2008.  There were more emails to follow.  None I want to share here.  Suffice it to say, they digressed further to the point of insult causing injury in both directions.  The experience has left me with this conclusion.  We are a human race of psychotics ready to kill each other to support and justify our various illusions of reality.  And since there are as many realities as individual egos to create them, we are in trouble.

At a crossroads of self realization a man sees a light.
Question:  Does the light shine for him alone or anyone, whether they should pass this way or not?
Answer:  The sun casts its light with no prejudice upon common ground.***

***Final Amendment: † December 14, 2008.  When conspiratorial logic dictates, should one be elected then he is a participant in the conspiracy, should he not or if elected be assassinated proving him to be genuine, this amounts to burning witches.  Puritanical practice of proving one to be a witch or not:  If she drowns she is not a witch, if she lives she is.   As far as I can tell, this kind of conspiratorial logic is the definition of insanity.

~

† November 13, 2008

Yes.

~

     This month my work is featured in Vision Magazine.  Below is something I wrote for the piece.  www.visionmagazine.com

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     Art needs to serve a purpose greater than itself or the artist who created it.  For me, it must express a deeper meaning.  At its best, art offers us a peek through the doorway, of the divine truth in us all.  At its worst, art is used to sell us something we don’t want or need.

     I look to the masters and leaders of days past for inspiration and at times the work I produce seems of another era.  As I try to make sense of the modern art of today, my only conclusion is that its relevance is in how it reflects what masquerades as leadership in our time.  More often than not, in our galleries and halls of power I see puppets of pretense, whose arbitrary value and worth are dictated by an endless stream of embellished rationale.  This needs to change, and through my art I hope to play a small part in creating a more enlightened future for humanity.

     We must raise the bar for our children.  We must aspire to a higher level of consciousness.  We must question those who profess to be looking after the common good and our best interests.  And in the same respect, I feel art must raise questions, make us think and ask questions of ourselves.  Are we living up to humanity’s ideals of compassion, honesty and truth?

     A question I often get asked, “How can you spend years creating a work of art?”  They say, “You must have great patience and fortitude.”  Such comments bring to mind one who I consider a great modern artist of our time, Polish sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski.  Knowing full well he would not see its completion, he began work on the Crazy Horse sculpture in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  I can only aspire to that level of purpose and dedication.

~

     My hope is that the positive change at the top permeates through the rest of humanity and that those who deserve... receive.

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Note:  To reach other entries of the past just use the Index on the right by choosing the date, a flyout title will also appear to help in your inquiry.  Or click here for Page 9 of the Journal.

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