TV Interview: Spotlight on Cocooning Catharsis

PBCJamaica "Spotlight" TV Interview Originally aired January 2014
for the solo photo-Based exhibition Cocooning Catharis at HiQo Gallery, Kingston, Jamaica
(Dec 19 - Jan 13th, 2014)


This was thankfully a casual but in depth discussion on the inspiration behind the work, and some of the methods used to make the pieces.  It was a great hang with the crew too.

Select works available at HiQo Gallery






Related links and articles:

Smile Jamaica/TVJ Morning Interview

Petchary Blog Review

Arc Magazine Release

The Gleaner

A Year of Collective Paradigm Shifts: Mind, World Body, and Soul...

I am grateful to be ringing in the New Year in a place where I am afforded a couple extra hours to reflect.  As we cross the threshold of 2011 to 2012, there are a few feelings about this shift - the most popular being:  GOOD RIDDANCE!   I will second that; but I also give big thanks.   

This life is a fascinating journey, and as many of you have come to know, is the main focus of this blog.  Though this year marked the end of my 'sabbatical' that I went on about for a couple of years, it ended up being one of the most dense to date.  So personal, painful, joyful, and intense were the paradigm shifts that I often felt too overwhelmed by the experiences to even blog about it - hence the significant lack of soulful and investigative posts this year.   

I met and connected with scores of new souls, each of whom touched and moved and lifted me in ways I can scarcely recall in years past.  I think it had much to do with being more open myself.  When terrifying events in life come to test our characters, or the resilience of our hearts, it's truly the tribes we have formed around us that keep us reaching higher.  And this year was high.  If there was any moment to question the oddity of serendipitous or seemingly coincidentally unlucky events, all one had to do was truly listen to the tale of another, or turn on the BBC news to truly feel connected to something bigger. I can't remember any time of worldwide uproars such as what we witnessed this year - so much so that TIME magazine name The Protestor the person of the year!  To feel this connection is to be charged by it, whatever the circumstances or prior held convictions.  The pulse of our world this year insisted on truth, equality, openness, second chances; it demanded a rebirth of ONE spirit, in friendships, business alliances, communities, and nations.  

As I prepare to look back while stepping forward, I will set my focus on the very long list of things I have to be grateful for this year; my new friendships and the evolution of old ones,  my accomplishments with my creative work, my freedom to travel, and my deeper understanding and connection with my family. And all this despite the very real and frightening challenges I faced regarding all of the above since Jan 1st, 2011.  

Perhaps the thing I am most grateful for is in ending the year in integrity.  I have no hang ups about how I have related to the world - and I can't truly say that about any other year.  I got comfortable enough in my humanity this year to be myself, to stand my ground, and to offer understanding, patience, truth, and love, where ever and whenever I could - and I'm incapable of accounting for the worth of such a gift.     

I've always been one to insist on focusing on gratitude - as it's the only way to see what you have to work with rather than to live in lack.  It's the only way you will feel abundant enough to help someone else. It is the only way you will feel whole enough to forgive others, or to offer true understanding and compassion. True gratitude will keep fear away, and keep you honest.  It's the only way to love your life, to love yourself, and to love your fellow human - who is just as challenged in navigating this journey as you are.  

Happy New Year folks - May you cross into 2012 with an open heart charged with courage to soar ever higher.  Know what you deserve, and dare to manifest it all, and do it with love.   

Inconsistency of optional identities

Sometimes I feel like a shit photographer with just a bunch of 'great' ideas.

Sometimes I feel like a great photographer with either stupid ideas, 

     or worse, 

     NO IDEA.

Most times I don't feel like a photographer at all

Just a dreamer, a shapeless artist with intangible ambitions, 

     itching to move away from 'craft' 

     and more into seeing, 'be-ing', believing

Living with a childlike heart and precocious lust to rewrite the world 

     with the pen of my lens 

     to create a new vision

     or version

     of reality

Cuz sometimes this version sucks!

Pier @ 79th Street, near the Boat House Basin, New York City

Heartscape Reconnaissance of a Lost Little Girl

The Ruling Valve

Performer: Crimson Heart Replica 

Does the wounded part of your heart direct your life, or do the wishes of the soft untarnished part race to create your experiences? People say life is short.  But I say life is long.  Think of how many memories you have, how many people you've met, how many disappointments you've moved past, how many surprises have tickled your outlook?  And just think how many more of those are ahead.  Every aspect of life, major or minor, in every place you have lived, every job you've had, every failing or successful result from any effort, every person - asshole or angel, stranger, family member, or friend, has shaped and reshaped your choices for your life,  the lessons you've learned, and how you feel about yourself and others...in short your identity...your heart.  

Our hearts get molded and recolored over and over again, but over the course of this long LONG journey we start to see and feel a graphic pattern of our ruling valve; the one that shapes our perceptions of this journey.  Does your ruling valve restrict flow to protect the whole heart from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune*?  Or does it pump energetically and openly, absorbing those arrows with an enduring life flow of wonderment and delight?  We all know the latter creates ease, and the former creates pressure...and with enough of the former, follows an inevitable implosion of explosive destruction.  That valve would restrict any inclination for open exploration, including the idea that seeking to remain innocent is life affirming, rather than emotional suicide.  

Like most people, my valves work in shifts, and as I get older I restrict myself more frequently - which always comes about from

fotos © Monique MOGI Gilpin

fear of a myriad of things, including fear of wanting good things for myself. But my ever dreaming childlike valve keeps screaming to reign supreme.  I breathe better by searching for fair perspectives in things; mercy and forgiveness  amidst negativity, acceptance of the inexplicable or indelible hurts, and the insistence in dancing on common ground with myself and everyone I share space and time with.  Yes there are some serious assholes out there, and real life challenges to contend with, but I feel we must understand that those who behave like assholes are simply people who are emotionally restricted by fear; and that the mental and physical work required to overcome personal conflicts or life challenges are better sustained with an open flow of positive energy (if even at a distance), than by use of suffocating anger or despairing restrictions of the heart.

What you are choosing at this precise moment is what is ruling your life at present.  But life is long, so there's time, now - if there's a need - to change your ruling valve.  What you feel, is how you live. It's your heart, no one can break it, build it, or open it more completely than you. 

* from Shakespeare's Hamlet, III.i., To be, or not to be, - sililoquy
 

----

Crimson Heart Replica: Beautiful Mistake

"My music is my natural instinct, an illustration of immense emotion bleeding out from passionate hearts and souls." ~CHR 

---

To all my peeps who keep my ruling valve open. 

♡♡♡

"Sonnet 29" - Performed by  Rufus Wainright, Clips from Pride & Prejudice:

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

--William Shakespeare

 ---

NOTE to Facebook Readers: 
videos may not show so you will have to visit click "View Original Post" to see them.  

RELATED JOURNEY POSTS:   Warm Light and Love (AUG 2010)

                         I Broke Up With Self-Sabotage...(JUNE 2010) 

If...Just for Comfort

Simply aiming for comfort has come to be seen as shooting low, or settling for less - especially in careers, and certainly in relationships.  Since we know I choose constant change and upheaval in the former, I mean heretofore to focus on the latter.  

At present (for this may change), I propose that just because someone impresses you doesn't mean they will be the next love of your life.  And if it looks like this miracle may not be the case, do you walk?  'Yes' some of you may say, but this is what defines the youthful heart I think, which is easily impressed by the magnetic qualities of the object of desire and equating this to that of undeniable love.  
When you 'grow up', and have enough affairs in life however, you learn that a person can be endlessly interesting yet never grips your heart, while a most ordinary soul can enchant you for life.  

Mutual admiration of the hot chemical kind  offers experiences or delights  with exciting fitful tales, but at a certain age, is this height of elation a necessary experience, let alone an automatic inclusion in our personal narratives? Evolutionary biology and psychology show that the timing of our most heated affairs and loves are aligned perfectly with our most fertile, hormonal, energetic years - when we are blind enough to create or believe the singularly aimed love-hype of 'forever after', and, also  whilst we are fit enough for the turmoil all that preposterous or near pathological energy often leaves in its wake.   

We are all taught either directly or indirectly from a young age that we should look for the impossible in a mate; find a  soul that 'completes' us, challenges and delights us, loves us endlessly, unconditionally, AND should be resident in a preternaturally attractive body which should remain that way...for eternity; any thing less being a most unsettling compromise. And no matter how you may have started out: in a bewilderingly beautiful and adrenalized love affair, or, a befouling catastophic event  - you still, in youth, believe this, wish, hope, and look for this tall tale whether you care to admit it or not. 

Then a bit more life happens. And it becomes distastefully apparent that alas, eternity in life (pardon the paradox, but it's what the fairy tales sell, right?), let alone with another, is not meant for some of us mere mortals.   And with one disappointing reality check (aka highway-of-love-heart-wreck) after another, we eventually rewrite the fantasy, the very tale that perhaps set the blind spots in place for all those collisions.

We retreat, we heal, we spend time with ourselves, we create some quiet, and then...we don't look; rather we hold exclusively open auditions (I know, oxymoron again) for someone to share the quiet with.  We become satisfied with the idea of someone filling a less complex role than 'soul mate' or 'self-completer'; we find we can only open up to  someone who is clear, calm, direct, and free of the indefatigable grand arias of yada-forever-bull-cah-cah; you know, someone who can just keep it real.  And if we find them, we herald them publicly as a wholesome catch summed up simply as "there's just no drama."  

I scream on my behalf on this one.  Heaven knows, the gods have ensured throughout my life and so therefore know, my great fortune in love, or at least, in affairs.  I have swept, and been swept off my feet by dashing novas in ways meant only for the movies to be sure, and much to the envy of those who've heard or witnessed my inordinately epic (and sometimes ridiculous) romances.  But - but, at this point the only thing I look for in my new tailor-made fantasies can be satisfied by far less frills, pomp, and unsustainable circumstance. Of course I still want fun adventures, but I also want to relax while having them.  I just want to be...sigh...comfortable.

If... 

If I were but a leaf
    falling from the burdened weight of your weary limbs,
I would waft my way
    through the spaces of your turbulent sways
Leaving drops of my chlorophyll spies
    to fill your horizon with shades of new life.

But here I stick to my heavy branch
    Too weary to detach
My stems uncertain, heaving doubtful sighs;
   eyes blinded by colourless promises in cloudless skies,

Hope floats beyond the shifting spaces,        

    hiding plainly from our weeping lies.

PS. Nothing to do with the topic at hand but, 

here's a great relaxation technique...rock balancing.  

seriously - try it.  

:)

reminiscence

         

           Cautiously polite

He guided me to the edge of

           the abyss

Looking through me

My back to infinity

He pushed me towards the edge

           with a kiss

His eyes closed as I fell into space

                           

Spreading my wings 

           in a freedom flight

           and rising

           he fell onto my shoulders

Then cradled by the span of my feathered hopes

We flew down... 

by Berette Macaulay

Torn in the Shadow...

...but still a Rose

   Love reigns in p

                   a

                  r

                   t

                  i

                   c

                  l

                   e

                  s

               of 

                       promises

      Stars sparkling 

                in hearts of 

                     forever-intentions

    Til and then, 

           morning light t

                         e

                          a

                         r

                           s 

                              our focus

                 exposing ground zero

                  just moments 

before hitting 

the

        blind spot

   of

        loss.

And yet...

              We bloom...

---

---

________________________

NOW

The shadow swallows the light 

and eats the shape 

of everything real.

I ride on the mouth of this dream, 

holding fast to the fantasy 

of memory 

and permanence,

While steering every action

towards erasing any evidence of it.

---

---

Ku-ing the Con of Love

"Con"

An unselfish act

Can only be born of love

Mystery solved.

~Mystic Urchin~ 

Questions: 

Does unselfish love really exist?  And if so, what conditions allow it to thrive?  Does it remain unselfish or does it eventually become possessive, fragile, and fearful?

I asked my friend what he meant by this Ku - just to be clear.  I wasn't sure what photo to post with it to be frank.  But then after this conversation - I could only come up with parental love:

ME: 

Having trouble with this one. Why did you call it "con".  Trying to think of the photo for this one and I'm stuck...expand a little for me - or gimme a figurative picture...

Love

URCHIN:
'Con' because it was something I spent a lot of time thinking 
about...is there really such a thing as an unselfish act?
Then I realised we only do unselfish things for ppl we truly love.
Charity is bullshit most of the time - we do it mostly to make 
ourselves feel better.

ME:
Ah yes - the old philosophical and psychological question in ethics 
and morality:  Does true altruism exist?  Nietzsche had a few 
interesting things to say on that one.  Ever got into him?

Yes I agree with you, but in more detached intellectual moments I have ventured to say that even what we do for 'love', is an effort to have that love returned; so the act therefore is not truly selfless since it still relies on some kind of return.

Tsk.

Anyhoo - thank you baby - i think i know where to dig now.

URCHIN:
No - the love I'm talkin about isn't romantic love - I mean love like what me+u have or that I have for Syd.... I have done things for frens + my child that they don't even know I've done...and not for love to be returned.
That's true love :)

ME:
I didn't misunderstand you - I wasn't thinking of Eros at all.  But usually the love you speak of, Agape, is thought among psychologists and philosophers to be quite rare, some believe it's impossible and only attributable to the gods and messiahs man has created.  But then that debate gets hot when the parent/child love is brought to the picture which quite arguably is the only relationship that comes close to real Agape (selfless) love - and usually from the parent more than the child.  But there are some logically sound and difficult-to-swallow debates there also.

It's all fodder really - as I do believe in self-less love for all kinds of relationships. I believe I love selflessly too and deeply - which is why I'm scared shitless of having a child!   But I do hear the posit that as long as the 'ID' is present, we humans are ultimately too self involved to truly be selfless.

Your thoughts?

"Blossoms" in Ku

 

A Chance Encounter
Succulent Like no other
Ancient yet brand new

~Mystic Urchin~

LABYRINTH of FOREVER: Doorway for the Spirit Chasers

So I'm doing it again. I've entered the annual Art For Progress competition: Clash of the Artists 2010 and I need YOUR VOTE!  

It's a small annual global contest with a handful of competitive categories: Visual Art, Music, Film, Fashion, DJ, and Creative.  I've put a video in the Creative category.   Some of you may remember I won this back in 2008 with a video presentation of my photo series SPLIT.  

This video is a new edit of work I directed (shot by Fury Young) last Spring.  I prepared a treatment and scripted scenes for this a couple years ago, originally to be part of my CrowDeD series.

I then adapted it for a projection piece used in a 30 minute dance performance at Nina Buisson's Avant Garde Festival in June 09'. 

It's a much shorter edit now, at 7 mins, with the new title, LABYRINTH of FOREVER: Doorway for the Spirit Chasers. Mystic Urchin supplemented it with some great text too! I hope you like it. 

Please click the links to vote - when you get there, scroll down on the Art for Progress Creative voting page to find my video.  Thanks y'all!


NOTE: You will be sent a confirmation email with link that you need to click on or your vote won't go through. 


---

VOTE FOR THIS VIDEO


LABYRINTH of FOREVER: Doorway for the Spirit Chasers from SeBiArt on Vimeo.

|excerpt|

the promise of forever frightens us,
threatening to bury us
in an immeasurable matrix
of darkness…

hold to your frequency
to live forever


~Mystic Urchin~

CREDITS:

Art and Film Direction by Berette Macaulay

Performers in Order of Appearance:
Maki Shinagawa
Cristal Albornoz
Berette Macaulay

Shot by Fury Young

Text by Steve ‘Urchin’ Wilson

Painting and Costumes by Cristal Albornoz

Additional photography SeBiArt

Film, Sound, and Text Editing by Berette Macaulay

A SeBiArt Production.

*Add'l Behind the Hidden Gate colour foto inserts I promised in a recent post.

RELATED JOURNEY POSTS: 

I Friggin WON!!! Ha - I got support like Obama!! lol! (Feb 2008)

Avant Garde Festival (May 2009)

Behind The Hidden Gate (Jan 2010)

Ku to Clear the View

There is need to sway
Naked Rhythm summons blues
Wind and Whispers dance.

~Mystic Urchin~

"Life is a theater - invite your audience carefully. Not everyone is spiritually healthy and mature enough to have a front row seat in our lives. 

There are some people in your life that need to be loved from a distance.  It's amazing what you can accomplish when you LET GO, or at least minimize your time with draining, negative, incompatible, not-going-anywhere relationships/friendships/fellowships!

Observe the relationships around you. Pay attention to: 

Which ones lift and which ones lean? 
Which ones encourage and which ones discourage? 
Which ones are on a path of growth uphill and which ones are going downhill?  
When you leave certain people, do you feel better or feel worse?  
Which ones always have DRAMA or don't really understand, know and appreciate you and the gift that lies within you? 

When you seek growth, peace of mind, love and truth, the easier it will become for you to decide who gets to sit in the FRONT ROW and who should be moved to the balcony of your life.  

You cannot change the people around you....but you can change the people you are around! Ask God for godly wisdom and discernment and choose wisely the people who sit in the front row of your life."


writer unknown


thanks for passing this along Chuchi! 




SOMEWHAT RELATED JOURNEY POST:  The Ongoing Attempt (2007)

Dear Chanticleear [with Flowers for McQueen]

I must say I'm proud to know this very talented young poet, Matthew Hittinger,  whom I met some years ago at a friend's party.   I'd like to share a really fun and clever piece he wrote shortly after this meeting which I always enjoy reading...and not just because he named me in it. Heehee.  Seriously check out his site - he's really a gifted, saucy, and fun writer.  


http://matthewhittinger.com/

And here's a garden visit for you too, and flowers for the tragic passing of another clever and saucy talent, Alexander McQueen. Quite shockingly, he hung himself today.  And surprisingly, I can't find any major news articles about it yet - but the fashion industry is spinning and screaming from the loss of this unique, daring, and fearlessly creative genius.  

Ku Of Truth

Done this before, but never explained.  Every now and then I'll be posting 'Kuz'...Haikus that is...as seen occasionally in my quote box to the right.   Most of them are written by Steve Wilson nee Mystic Urchin, but all writers are welcome!  If you've got one - send it along, I'll post it along with a SeBiArt image that compliments it. 

Quick Haiku Definition: Japanese style of poetry using 17 moras (or syllables), formed in 3 metrical phrases, usually about nature's seasons.  In English, the verse is shown as 3 separate lines of 5, 7, and 5 moras. The skill here is economic verbal expression in creating imagery and mystery we can feel.  We here will break the Japanese rules a bit by making the Ku about whatever strikes the mind and heart. Fascinated?  See more HERE.

  Enough adieu. To this week's Ku. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Its an unsung truth
There is beauty in heartache
Proof of recent love


~Mystic Urchin~

Allegories on Winds of Desire...

...it blazes over seas through the skies burning holes in God's air incinerating all realities and still...


I can't touch you...

...but I remember how you feel.

-------

You.

    Where.

          It.

              What.
                    Who. 

                         The object.

What sends you blindly ploughing forward in a most focused action toward the object of your desire?

Some have defined desire as Will, but does it will your actions towards fertile ends?  Does it consume you or fill you with life? What makes it increase? Does it cease if gratified? What could kill it; how might it die, and should you let it? 

According to Aristotle, there is no movement without desire, though he did concede that not all movement is toward a creative or useful end. I'm constantly, selectively, and frustratingly in the tug of choosing what makes an object worth my drive - especially as an artist.

If desire is the will to drive forward, then as Plato and Socrates offer, it is reason that puts a driver in the seat, and without one there will be fruitless befuddlement.  But what about people who push against the limits of caution, control and good sense,... and succeed?  Are their experiences happy accidents or examples to the rest of us?

Sometimes desire is necessary to move, indeed, but other times it is often distracting and crippling.  When is the distraction constructive or destructive?  A diversion can sometimes lead us to better experiences that we may have otherwise and unwittingly  circumvented - especially when it is supported by passion and belief! [see Treatise on Human Nature, David Hume] 

As Eastern philosophers (particularly Buddhists) posit - impulses of desire or cravings are the cause of destructive suffering and spiritual paralysis, and thus should be quelled. Nirvana is after all, the happiness of nothingness...the extinction of suffering, caused by covetous living. [see Siddhārtha Gautama].  Some Western ideals and morals propel this too - hence the negative connotation of desire as some sort of rude and impractical temptation that will destroy your soul; and those who believe this suffer from guilt when in wanting, immobilized in contrition yet promised eternal salvation.

But without desire, there would be no astounding discoveries; no risky experiments that lead to practice and ritual; no triumphs in the face of adversity; no love against all odds; and certainly no impossible dreams fulfilled.  As such, shouldn't we advise each other the way we do a child?  

I believe that desire is the elixir of life; it lends possibility to the unimaginable, and sets standards for excellence in everything. This driving force is necessary, and the other - cognitive reasoning, can either help to organise and channel it, or hinder it in fear - and thus whose counsel should be managed with care.

photo by Nina Buisson

"I'm youth, I'm joy," Peter Pan answered at a venture, "I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg...So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land!"

Fly little children, fly!

Except for the um...obvious exception by Nina Buisson (taken in Central Park, NYC) - I took these photos in Colorado within a 5 minute period - an unbelievable sunset blazing fire across the skies, scorching the clouds and changing the heavens so fast it seemed impossible.