I need to be reminded I can choose again. Love or fear, peace or anger, right or happy, awake or asleep. I am not a victim of circumstance, birth, or disease. Deep within there is a place where I have never been or never can be hurt, harmed, or endangered in any way.
This place is where I want my art to come from. I want my art to be a vehicle to that place. A vehicle to that place for me and, incredibly, for you too.
I hope you’ll choose to join me this June at Our Saviors Atonement Lutheran Church in New York City for the first incarnation of a growing, traveling, installation called Choose Again.

Stephen Beveridge
@
ART SPACE OSA
178 Bennett Ave @ 189th St, NYC
1 train to 191st Street | A train to 190th Street

June 2008
Reception 6/22/08 7:30 pm

Why do you show your art? That’s one of the questions we are asking in our interviews for the ASCA film. We have gotten a few pretty standard replies and one person didn’t understand how we could ask that question. It was taken for granted and never thought about.

Is it an ego boost? An opportunity to make money? (with the noble cause of producing more art no doubt) Do we show to gain the respect and admiration of our peers? To boost our visibility and become famous? To share the inner truths we have discovered with our poor sightless companions. To awaken a sense of moral outrage. To motivate, comfort, shock, and challenge.

It seems to be divided two ways. Do I show for me or for the viewer? I have said in the past that showing my art is the next step in the creative process. I think thats bullshit now but I meant it then. I want to let the paintings fulfill their destiny. Let my children go out and see who they are in the context of the local coffee shop.

I’d hate to be seen as one who needs the support of their peers before knowing if it’s good or not. Damn it: it’s good, you just aren’t ready for it yet. You’re not at a place where you can understand, poor dears, someday maybe. I’ll die a martyr and the accumulation of my life’s work/folly will be stacked by the curb. A couple of smaller pieces hopefully scavenged by a passing painter with more visions than money. Then one day a century from now someone will find an old jpeg languishing on an ancient disc or in the hard drive of some professor of history and people will discover what was right under their noses the genius overlooked artist.

Why do I show my art?

I don’t know why.

Sure I still want to be famous but I’ll settle for enlightenment.

Sure I want lots of money (to make more art of course with maybe a large screen hdtv to watch pbs of course)

Yes I do want the respect and admiration of my peers, and at the same time I can’t stand them. “I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.” Thanks Woody.

I was sent this the other day.

What is objective art?
Is creativity somehow related with meditation?

Objective art is just the opposite. The man has nothing to throw out, he is utterly empty, absolutely clean. Out of this silence, out of this emptiness arises love, compassion. And out of this silence arises a possibility for creativity. This silence, this love, this compassion - these are the qualities of meditation.

I did some research (wikipedia) and Osho is an interesting guy. Sometimes known as the sex guru or the rich mans guru. It seems he was a wee bit persecuted.

He has some interesting meditation methods where for ten minutes the person jumps up and down with their arms raised, shouting Hoo! each time they land on the flats of their feet. OSHO Mystic Rose, comprises three hours of laughing every day for the first week, three hours of weeping each day for the second, with the third week for silent meditation.

anyways…

What struck me most was that my latest art pieces looked divisive and hostile.
It looked like I threw up and now want you to look at it.

Here look.

I removed the pieces from entry in to the Now Here This exhibition and set out to create a meditative piece for the show. It’s not like me to make a piece like this. My friend said “I didn’t know you felt that way” and i don’t. I told him if I wrote about a serial killer it doesn’t mean I am one but still its out of character for me.

i do stuff like this;

or this

Art is the conversation between lovers.
Art offers an opening for the heart.
True art makes the divine silence in the soul
Break into applause.

Art is, at last, the knowledge of
Where we are standing–
Where we are standing
In this Wonderland
When we rip off all our clothes
And this blind man’s patch, veil,
That got tied across our brow.

We are partners straddling the universe.
Someone inside of us
Has one foot
Upon each resplendent pole.
Someone inside of us is now kissing
The hand of God
And wants to share with us
That grand news.

You will find yourself knee-deep in ecstasy
When all your talents to love
Have reached their heights.

Hafiz, time space, and boredom
Are just passing fads.
All your pain, worry, sorrow
Will someday apologize and confess
They were a great lie.

International / Middle East

With Fixtures of War as Their Canvas, Muralists Add Beauty to Baghdad

By STEPHEN FARRELL

Published: August 11, 2007

The city of Baghdad has hired two dozen artists to paint murals upon the miles of vast concrete blast walls that now snake along roads, rivers and sidewalks throughout the city.

I decided to photograph folk holding a sign which said simply “Forgive Me”. Upon viewing the photographs I could choose to practice releasing my ideas about that person and maybe provoke thoughts about forgiveness In other viewers.

I Imagined someone whose thoughts were tortured by the mistakes of a doctor. I imagined that maybe seeing a doctor holding the forgive me sign they might realize that forgiveness was a possibility. A possibility to let go of the burden of holding all doctors to blame. It seems like life can be a collection of incidents with people and judgments attached. I’ve found it helpful to release some of these incidents and free up my vision for a fresh look.

I plan on photographing a policeman or someone who looks like Aunt Joanne standing In the photograph plainly asking for forgiveness. I decided to start with the homeless. I blame them for making me feel guilty when I don’t give up the dollar asked for or just walk by with a full stomach freshly showered. I’m afraid of the situation they are in and don’t want it to happen to me. My fear makes me angry.
#
My spiritual path requires forgiveness. I need people to reflect back to me the positions and attitudes which cloud my vision. Having no luck recognizing or releasing these attitudes myself I can forgive them In others thereby letting myself off the hook a little at a time.
#
Forgiveness Is the recognition of perceptual error. To forgive Is not to condone but to open myself to the chance that my perception may be limited or skewed. I can’t possibly know what your path entails, where you’ve been and what your motivations are. My judgement limits me.
#
Edie was known to me as the smelly lady. I had never asked her name. She would come In to our meeting place to get coffee and cookies. I had a lot of forgiveness work to do with her as sometimes she would smell so bad as to nauseate people and cause them to leave the meeting. We had come to consensus that when the odor was that bad she would be asked to leave. It wasn’t quite as cut and dried as It sounds as there were explorations of aid, donations of clothes, and a search for shower facilities. After all we are not without guilt and the desire to appear compassionate.
#
Edie wasn’t my first choice to hold the sign. I had seen homeless people by the subway holding signs which asked for help and modelled my sign after theirs. I thought I would approach one of those guys and ask him to hold the forgive me sign.
There Is a barrier between me and art which Is self consciousness, an inner narrative. This conspired to prevent me from approaching the person I had In mind.
#
As I approached my destination without having the guts to act I spied a piece of cardboard perfect for the sign and decide to get people I knew to hold It first then branch out with more confidence. I quickly scribbled the sign as this was the art and it deserved spontaniety. Edie was standing outside and I asked her If she would allow me to photograph her holding the sign. She said sure. I asked her name and she asked me what the sign meant. I told her and she replied “Oh I get It It’s like the Captain going down with his ship. Is there anyone In your life you would sacrifice for?” I was taken aback and replied “maybe my dog and my wife on a good day.” I wasn’t sure she understood or If she had understood and had leapt to a new understanding of forgiveness. She then told me “there are no homeless anywhere In the world. We are all at home with God.”
#
I’ve gotten quite a few surprise reactions to the request to hold the sign. Some people are deeply moved by the opportunity. Some seem to have some incident in mind. There are a whole group of people who see It as a big joke and are happy to smile and hold the sign or pose. I don’t direct the participant In any way and I see myself as recorder of the events. I’ve held the sign once myself and found myself posing with no connection to the sign so I can certainly understand those who react that way.

When I think about the project I still get excited so I’m gonna keep doing It till thats gone. Thats my measure of worth In art.

The launch of Ebayaday, where art is sold online, cannot replace the supremacy of real things in real time and space. So says Ana Finel Honigman as she reveals what we long suspected. jpegs don’t tell the whole story. Like the slide held to the light it’s a poor way to experience a painting.
Check out the story here.

I woke up this morning with a flesh suit and a crippling back story. I know you can identify because you have a flesh suit too but a crippling backstory? It may not be real but it looks like all the evidence is in place. If the CIA set it up they did a great job. Who was I yesterday? The same guy I am today.

It’s all here the wife, the dog, the worn shoes and toiletries. In the street people nod, the phone rings and the caller asks for me. I log on to the computer and email has my name in the header.

Slowly the facts of this elaborate back story become apparent. Limitations and laments, failures and dissapointments, dashed dreams and physical deterioration. It seems I have set up little reminders in my environment to try and offset some of the crushing truth of my situation. Photographs of happy times in temporary environments I payed through the nose for. Post its with affirmations of hope and wealth. Old lottery tickets and pants that don’t fit. I’v'e also cleverly situated drug dispensers throughout the apartment. Just to help me make it through the day. I’ve got a nesspreso machine which heats water and forces it through brightly colored pods of ground coffee coded for different levels of despair. I have two televisons standing by to transport me in to another environment with its own simpler cleaner backstory and the knowledge that I can turn it off at any time. A large white box maintains my ice cream, cakes, eggs, and butter in case I need the comfort provided by these foodstuffs.

You might say I don’t have it so bad. After all 35% of the worlds population lives on less than a dollar a day. (from the internet) I seem to have been supplied with a lot of support to cope with the crippling back story. The one that reminds me I will grow old , deterorate physically and then die and rot leaving those who love me to mourn. The story of how at any minute I could be crippled, blinded, maimed, or thrust in to abject poverty begging on the streets without a shower.

This is the point in the story where I tell you how I’ve found God and hope and donned a new pair of glasses to see the my story through a magic filter. Or how I’ve learned to live in the moment and forget the back story and it’s supporting evidence.

Except I haven’t and the evidence here suggests I won’t (theres a ton of self help and spiritual books lying around) So where’s the happy ending, the moral of the story? After all this is America. It’s probably unpatriotic to face the truth. I know I should at least blame someone. It can’t be my own fault. My parents come to mind then the government and the schools. Organized religion (if your disorganized your OK) X-rays and fluoride and transfat and the media. Oh I’m starting to feel better already. What am I doing here I could be drinking coffee and watching TV instead of wallowing in self pity. All those other bastards are worse than me. I’m not so bad. There’s a ton of evidence to support the theory that I am totally helpless and most importantly blameless in this situation. sure i’ll accept the backstory and the flesh suit but it’s not my fault. I didn’t choose it and i continue to be powerless to change it. Thank god i was getting tired of typing.