You Are Here
sat, 13 february 2016, san francisco
10 visual artists, 7 poets/writers, 2 songwriters -- all exploring our place and time here on earth as individuals with unique voices and as a part of a larger, complex community and world. What connections and common themes are appearing in our body of work as we come together to share the experience of being here?
Feeling like both water and fire, noticing the divine and physical in a moment, trying to make sense of the elusiveness of time, sharing an awareness of impermanence, being present in each other's company while also alone in our personal journeys...just another blessed day with each other in this place called here.
SHOKA 2016
Sumi Suda
In addition to being a form of art, Ikebana (“living flowers”) can be a spiritual practice. In this traditional form, called Shoka from the Ikenobo school, the concept of shin (heaven), soe (earth), tai (human) is repeated in the scotch broom branches and irises in the arrangement.
The practice of arranging the flowers and our experience of the arrangement as spectators bring an opportunity for awareness of the divine, the earthly and the human state of our existence in each moment.
UNTITLED 2016
UNTITLED 1993
Doria Fan
REFLECTION
David Yu
WHERE NEXT &
IT IS DECIDEDLY SO
Gretchen Wustrack
T-O MAP NO. 3, 4, 5
INTERSECTION, SIGNA,
ABYSS
Laura Plato
This series exists at the edge of our collective soul. It invites reaction because it feels liminal & unfinished, much as we feel about ourselves. It is inspired by works that explore the intersection of form & matter with void & energy: the Hereford Mappa Mundi; the medieval monastic T-O maps; Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art; and, i felt it myself, by Jamie Kruse.
Daughter and mother. Jaipur, India, 2009 (left)
Little boy and Buddha. White Horse Buddhist Temple, Luoyang, Henan, China, 2016 (right)
WHO DO YOU WANT TO BE?
Steve Suda
Buddhists believe everyone has the potential to become a Buddha. We can follow a path of those who came before us or we can pursue a path uniquely our own. Who do you want to be?
ALONE TOGETHER
TOGETHER ALONE
Arlene Kim Suda
Exploring negative space on the canvas brought awareness to the spaces we experience in our individual and collective lives. Sometimes we can feel alone and together, sometimes together but alone.
Obrigado pela visita is Portuguese for “thanks for visiting” something Chris used to say.
Photographs of a sculpture made for Dia de los Muertos, Nov 2nd, 2015, Garfield Park, San Francisco
OBRIGADO PELA VISITA
CATHERINE SOUTHARD
The Whale is a swimming library
Here when it all began
Here when we make our transition
It remembers your footprint on the world
Staying underwater for periods
Sustaining great pressure
Always coming back up for air
And so must we
I am grateful you were my brother
in THE FIRE AND THE SPACES IN BETWEEN
Belinda Liu
TRIPLE FOX FACES
LOTUS FLOWER
Hanna M. Hedley
Three fox faces all put into one to symbolize all of them helping to keep the family running. (origami paper)
This lotus flower symbolizes all the things in the world, some big and important and some small and unimportant, smushed into one place. (pencil on paper cut-out)
BIRTH BY BRENDEN KENNELLY
read by Ciarán Byrne
I don’t know if I shall be
Speaking or silent, laughing or crying,
When it comes to me
Out of this distant place
To shine at the window, rustle the curtains,
Brush my face
More lightly than gossamer,
So inspiring and fragile
I shall not dare to stir
Or hardly breathe until I sense
In my heart and mind
Its delicate omnipotence.
I may know then
The price and value of stillness
Commonly ignored by men
And be content to feel
It possess me,
Steal
Through my remotest countries
And establish its rule
Where, my bravest days,
I would not dare to venture.
Then, if I find courage enough,
I may speak in a manner
Befitting this thing.
God help me the moment
My heart starts opening
To comprehend and give.
I will be born in that hour of grace.
I will begin to live.
alta plaza
THE TURNING LIGHT
Into the wind
The cleansing ringing of the chimes
The ancient hills
Were bathed in light
A light to wash away
Filth and crime depraved
Dark sky that gave way
To rising fire
The dying source of waking life
Await the earth
To tilt the season in the sky
The wind whipped hills
Beneath the halo of the light
Spirits mixed in air
Flickering with life
Swirling blustering
Brightness radiating
Spreading origin of time
Video by Elisa Chiu
the water
Nancy larocca Hedley
Afraid of water.
Of the cold, the depths.
What if I get lost there never to return?
And what is in the water that I cannot see?
Don’t go there.
Stay on the surface.
Or far away from the water entirely.
Yet water is what continues to call me.
Flowing water.
Creeks, rivers, springs, waterfalls, oceans.
Sunlight glinting, sparkly on the surface.
Inviting me.
I need to go in.
To dive deep.
To explore. To know what is there.
To reclaim it as my own.
Liminality
Liz kelly
Days are both divine and strange,
flowing like liquid
one into another.
Liminal space swallows me whole,
leaves me floating in indigo
and dreams where I’m pursued
by animals with news
stories to share
if I could just quell the fear
and stay right here.
If I could just…
too late.
I’m back in the country they call life.
Rilke said I would know it by its seriousness;
I know it by its emptiness.
No, I don’t want to talk about the weather –
I want to talk about forever!
Synchronicities…
the power of She…
how we can be free
from our self-inflicted tyranny...
Too much for a Sunday barbecue – possibly?
Hell no, not for me!
Because here’s what I see:
Worlds within worlds
layers upon layers
realities tucked inside of realities
They’re so close to my reach
I want to bite into each
Tasting the moment
Breathing it in
Slowing it
So I can truly, finally know it.
Chapter 1: fairy tales
john HEDLEY
The biggest fiction in a fairy tale isn’t that Flynn Rider climbed up Rapunzel’s hair, or that Prince Charming found Cinderella, or that a kiss from Prince Phillip awoke Sleeping Beauty. The biggest lie in a fairy tale is these six words: “and they lived happily ever after.” It turns out, rescuing the princess is the easy part. “Happily ever after” is the fantasy, and like most fantasies, if it actually came true, it would be a terrible disappointment.
This is no fairy tale. No one lives happily ever after, not because there is no happiness, but because there is no time. And without time, there is no beginning. And with no beginning, there is no ending.
Still, I’ve got a story to tell, so for practical purposes, I have to start, well, from the beginning -- just don’t get too hung up on the idea.
Sound Experiences
Tom Kelly
The only instruction from the artist is that you close your eyes when listening to each of these 3 sounds. If you feel inspired, please share what comes to your mind.
WE ARE HERE (MAP OF OUR WORLD)
Arlene Kim Suda
What projection do we use in our view of the world?
This pencil and gouache on paper collage is based on Buckminster Fuller’s dymaxion map projection of the world. This projection became know as the “Airocean World Map” and emphasized the idea that we are all part of “one island in one ocean”. It uses the form of an icosahedron (20 face polyhedron).
