I recently updated my artist statement, and this time I tried something different…
I made notes on what I saw and felt for each of my artworks.
just a list of feelings
The notes looked like this:
feelings of ungroundedness, grief standing amidst a whirlwind, being invisible and powerless while things go extinct, ignoring messages of my intuition, grieving the loss of environmental collapse, trying to find my place in the universe and how I connect to something bigger, seeking, realizing I know nothing, feeling my connection to nature disintegrate and fracture, identifying with falling leaves, with disintegration, identifying with aspects of nature, recognizing my fears, feeling frustrated, feeling like an observer only, feeling there is something more, questioning if there is something greater, witnessing the demise of a species, feeling into crossovers of seasonal change, distilling moments in time, micro/macro, butterfly scales, butterfly veins, close-ups, details of structure, motions of falling and gradation, transformation
And then I asked ChatGPT to make sense of it.
After a few prompts, I had something I could work with, something simple and true that resonated with my motivations at a deep level. I doubt I could have come up with it on my own. It needed a bit of editing, but the core of it was spot on.
key word: ephemeral
I’ve spent much of my life tormented by a need to feel part of something greater. I have struggled to find spiritual meaning for myself within the constructs of society, the natural world, and the cosmos.
Further, I’ve long envied creatures, plants, and elements of nature that exist without this anguish. I wonder at their clarity of being!
The speed and ease by which a chatbot could describe my work was disheartening. It reflected back my ineptitude of self-knowledge and inability to communicate how I feel in words.
Going forward, I can only expect to encounter this discrepancy more and more.
unfathomable intelligence
With such a profound expansion of intelligence at our doorstep, I’ve turned a corner. I am suddenly willing to abandon my interminable seeking and wholeheartedly submit to straightforward embodied feeling. Because that’s the most important thing I have.
Is it possible this is what I’ve been waiting for?
The looming approach of unfathomable intelligence illuminates my place in the world process. Finally, I have an appreciation for being small. It is a blessing of insignificance.
I feel a release of pressure. Now I can make peace with my mere presence, the difficulty I have with daily, terminable existence. A drop in the ocean. That’s all I need to be.
This is ancient wisdom, an established and felt truth for many. Yet it has just now sunk in for me at a cellular level. There is no barrier to hurdle, no apex to strive for. It’s clear my only task is to feel. Only in this am I powerful, unique. This interior experience…no one else can know.
Is this what I’ve been waiting for?
This (dangerous, threatening, blinding) intelligence frees me from forging a path for myself, and I am relieved to be dumb.
No longer do I need to gauge my value. I join those creatures with clarity now!
I can carry soil in my mouth like an ant, transport pollen on my thighs like a bee. Like the redwood, grounded yet exposed, I must wait for the sunlight, wait for the rain, and allow the fire or the boring beetle.
You can read my revised artist statement here.
Artworks on this page are NFTs and can be viewed here.
