Passion

"Passion " is my first video, both shooting and creating the finished product. The piece was inspired by Jason & Brandon, 2 fantastically inspiring artists, with whom I am studying with at the University of Oregon. The project which brought this particular piece about is called "The Sacred" and first required a reading from the book "Formless: a users guide", the chapter called "Base Materialism". I was caught off guard; I felt myself cracking a bit, cracking the well layered shell of existance in a human body fed the ideas of others. Jason and Brandon encouraged invention - something totally new. I could not discover something totally new, certainly not something untouched by my many years of life. Something unique that's being informed by my own history. How could I set free a bit of the true self, the wild self, the indigenous self that knows the experience of limitlessness, whose visited countless times the place of no separation? Journal.

To arrive at "Passion", I first had to define "The Sacred" to myself...
through extensive research and then a process by which I might transfer into clay. I have felt stuck along a trajectory; 1 that I have been on for too long; all of my clay objects seem to look the same, I needed something entirely new to renew my experience with clay.
The sacred for me is not an object or a place; it is everything and nothingness - it is an experience I've had in many different ways - an experience of no separation, full connectedness to all that is; the omni place of being. I am in this place when I'm touching everything and everything is touching me. How do I get there? Being in nature, completely alone, allows me this presence. The dichotomy of separation from humanity to arrive at a place of connectedness to all things; there, I am free of the human doing and can become more of a human being.

Pain, struggle, fear, always looking for a safe place, a sacred place, and at the same time, always pushing my limits, especially as my body's limits are changing so rapidly. I am in physical pain all the time now; one day I am able to walk, the next day I am crawling. Is the physicality of my body's condition a reflection of my state of "being"? I want to write a new story, but I also want to live a new story. What am I actually able to change? What do I effect? Why do I think that writing a new story has the potential to change my body?

The only constant is change. I am grateful for this. I decided to have an experience with clay, a new experience and also with myself.

Jason said "make yourself uncomfortable" and "kick the legs out from under it...". I initially heard that literally, but I am already physically uncomfortable. In that same instance, I knew that he did not intend to be heard in a literal sense. Directed by my senses, I chose to have my body wrapped in wet paperclay soaked cheesecloth. I couldn't do this alone and I had to document it. My wonderfully supportive partner, Michele, wrapped my body - I had to trust and accept also the lack of control. My expectation, a documentation of a transcendence and then a dry, clay mummy of myself with which I could manipulate.

I brought some of my closest loved ones in to complete this piece; they are sacred to me. My daughter, Amorina, dances; this is her passion. Shifting between my stillness and her constant movement, there is a constant overlapping, a constant beat, extremes, the ever-flowing water, the water on me which would not dry, hypothermic in a ninety degree room - the heat within - passion - spirit - sacred -



You will definitely need headphones to fully experience "Passion". Do enjoy and comment if you like.