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The Anatomy of Return
“The world is burning: how, then, shall we live.”
–Lisa Wells, Believers, Making a life at the end of the world
[Provoke]
I hear the siren call of another way of being, a hungry ghost on the outskirts, a rebel waiting to be called back to the fold. The form is unknown but direction and intention draw me forward.
What does it mean to be an artist in a time when the world is burning? Is there still value in making things? How does this relate to the central question of how do I want to live? Connecting to this inquiry returns me to myself, a body sense of a piece fitting into place. It’s terrifying to step back in and commit to creative practice. There are infinite distractions and reasons not to begin. I know however that I can’t find answers down the path that brought me here. Life has broken open and spit me out. I have no choice.
Making has always been cyclical in my life — on again off again — following my curiosity down the rabbit hole of nature, speech, and the body and then interrupted (while also strengthened) but the craft of problem-solving and making for others, continually tilting between design and art.
Design gave me a sense of purpose until it didn’t until it felt fractured and extractive and embedded in a trajectory of not-so-happy endings.
