Recharging The Battery

In my life I try to keep things simple and efficient. Do the things you are supposed to do at the times you are supposed to do them. I mean the times you -naturally- are supposed to do them, not by the rule of an artificial mandate. I visualize this by imagining my “self” as a machine filled with battery banks. Every segment of my life runs on an individual but interlinked battery. The batteries supply power to “types” of energy, such as: artistic, physical, intellectual, literary and other types of energy. In my experience, running the power too intensely and too long in any given facet drains energy to the point of inefficiency. For example, doing too much exercise in a given time period makes you move slow, you need to take a break to let the muscles heal. I believe all aspects of human energy are subject to this.

Nothing is forced in my life, I do “what makes sense”. I let the most charged battery run the show until it is depleted. This doesn't mean I get to skip out on our shared demands of humanity, but it means I arrange those obligations in a manner wherein they fit with my natural rhythm. I work. I work incredibly hard, for extended periods of time. When I “feel like working” I do it. Often, this is for weeks, if not months straight. 12-18 hours per day. I want to do it, it's not tiring. It's not stressful. I'll wake up before dawn, chug a cup of coffee, then blink and it's 9 at night. My energy is focused, and i'm highly productive. Using a fully charged source of energy feels good.

The batteries always run low eventually. Work that should take 30 minutes takes 3 hours and is done 50% as well. That's when it's time to stop. Time to recharge the battery. Time to feed whatever it is in the human mind the food it needs to stock back up on creative energy. In terms of physical activity this would be literal food—in creative endeavors I think the “food” is life experience.

This is not new for me, every year, sometimes a few times, I go on physical and/or educational binges that take me into new realms. One year I was so into solar power I built an 8ft parabolic cooker (which I later took apart because it was too hard to use, tho it'd ignite wood in a few seconds on a sunny day). I work just as intensely at these endeavors as I do on the artistic ones—it feels good to use energy that wants, no, needs to be used. The view of humans being “one dimensional” specialists with our lives I feel is flawed. Not to say that it is “wrong”, but in my experience it isn't real, and at least my mind refuses to work that way. If I exclude those other dimensions of my existence, my mind (and body) seems to suffer such stagnation that it directly translates to the work I create. Boring lives make boring art. Passion is letting your energy flow freely in the direction it demands to flow, for as long as it needs to flow.

The idea of using time inefficiently irritates me, life is short. I believe in using the energy that is naturally available to you. Every day offers an experience to devour, something to learn and grow from, and in this extremely short human existence I want to do it all—I'm a tourist in a human body, hanging out on a tiny planet, and I got lots to do! So, cheers—i'll be doing things that are not art until it's time for the creative energy to flow again!

Creating Complete Thoughts With a Metalworkers Dictionary

It's been almost 6 months since I had time to sit down and write, I think that sums up the pace of life that I have been living. After last summer, when the doctor cleared me to move again, I was off to the races.

I started out with a whirlwind of physical activity. I sat still for 3 months, with 4 months prior to that of not much moving. I biked and walked like a starving man would eat a first meal. In 6 weeks I logged over 700 miles on my bicycle. Those miles were insanely challenging, but who cares—i could fucking move my leg and it didn't hurt. The atrophy was simply a tiny impediment. I'm stubborn, and for the 4^th year in a row I did my Frostburg to the top of Backbone Mtn. Ride.

I walked Oy. A lot. I felt like I had a debt to him. I promised him I'd walk him everyday. Rain or shine. There was a lot of “I’m sorry pup” those months. As soon as I was cleared to walk, the first day, I walked him 2 miles. Both of us were winded!

I got to dive back into blacksmithing too, as it was summer. It felt damned good to go back to work. To swing hammers again. I made stuff. Lots of stuff. Mostly filling long delayed orders, but sneaking in stuff for myself too. I had a lot of time to “think”, so I had a lot to get out.

November came, and I switched to my winter schedule. Until May 1 I work from home, making jewelry, sculpture, or whatever I feel like. I was (and still am) in a jewelry mood.

I started the winter work session with the attitude “go big or go home”. I didn't want to produce a massive amount of work. I wanted to make good work. I wanted to grow as an artist.

I didn't want to make machines this year. I have a huge aesthetic vocabulary and it was time to learn how to use it better. I felt that it's the equivalent of having a dictionary at your fingertips, yet struggling to assemble a meaningful sentence. It was time to start creating complete thoughts with a metalworkers dictionary.

I wanted to carry on with the design discipline I started on last year. Sketch, sketch, and sketch some more. There are enough bad designs in the world, I don't need to create more. I did do some bad ones, yes, but the sketching really minimized that.

I wanted to push myself, and push the technical skills I have. Everything needed to work together. I wanted the language of the jewelry I was going to make to be able to easily translate to sculpture.

Then I started, dove in. Designed. Sat over the sketchbook and drew images. To up the ante, I bought silver—bad designs in silver are expensive and I wanted to force myself to take it seriously.

I worked. 7 days a week, 8-12 hours per day. I didn't have to, but I wanted to. I'm a “working breed” human, and I savor hard work and the potential to triumph challenges. I think I took 3 days off all winter. One because it was -15f with 30mph winds and I wanted to see what it was like to bike (and walk the dog too) when it's that cold, I mean, when am I gonna get to do that again in Maryland? One day was because I found a neat piece of machinery and really liked the idea of a field trip, and one day was because I desperately wanted to ski! But really, this was a working winter!

Every night I sketched 2-4 hours, or more. I designed until I liked what I saw. Some nights I sat, and nothing came. I sat until I found something to grasp. A shape to expand, a line to redraw. Something, I wanted something beautiful, on the paper and I wasn't going to leave the room until I got it.

The next morning I sat with a cup of coffee reviewing the previous nights work. I refined the sketch. Sometimes I scrapped the whole thing and spent the morning drawing again. On most days after the morning coffee and obligatory 5 minute dog cuddle, I was in the jewelry shop working.

I started on the most interesting element of the design and made it. Usually, it did not translate 100% from the sketch, which left me with major design decisions that needed to be made on the fly. I moved slowly and took these decisions seriously, often making several options out of brass before I made the silver one.

I moved slowly this winter, very slowly. Digesting every design decision and trying to let it sink in to my head. Often at night while sketching I sat with the previous days work in hand so I could dissect it. I would break it down to the tiniest curve and how it related to each individual hammer mark. I was after details. Not necessarily controlling them, but I wanted to see them, and understand how they interact.

Now, Feb 28 with the spring season and lighter work schedule coming up, was it successful? It's too early for me to evaluate, but I learned a ton. Both about myself and the medium. I'm really looking forward to getting back to working at Penn Alps (www.spruceforest.org) this May, and getting back to some larger problem solving activities.

Repair and Maintenance: Part 2

Part 2:

I had enough sulking. I wasn't going to die from cancer. I had surgery scheduled, and it was going to be weeks before life was “normal” again. It was time to see what cards I had to play, and to play them.

I wasn't going to accept being trapped. If crutches were my new form of mobility, I was going to become mobile. I started cautiously. I had no idea if this was feasible, or just insane. The terrain in Frostburg is far from flat, and I wanted miles. I didn't even know if I could crutch up the huge 400 vertical ft hill in my neighborhood. The first day I went to the bottom of my street and back: ½ mile. The next day I did 1.5 miles. Then 2 miles. I could do this.

I was going to take calculated risks. It was too long to live in a bubble, but I didn't want to be pigheaded either. Being reckless had a high cost, after all, I'm fond of my hip bone and there wasn't much left of it in that spot!

I was going to take everyday risks. Going into my basement to do jewelry (which I actually didn't make any jewelry, but I made sure I -could-). Weeding the garden, I managed to use an oscillating hoe and hop on one foot to weed the entire garden every few days. One day early on I was actually so frustrated I cut my entire 1 acre yard with a one handed scythe while hopping on one foot. My life was not going to go “on hold”, I would adapt, but not stop.

I love problem solving, and this was one big goddamned problem.

I prioritized “low risk” activities over high risk ones. I relearned website design. I learned about dorky computer things. I don't really “love” those activities, but I could tolerate them. I passed the time, not by wasting it, but by optimizing it for the tools I could use.

The time did pass. Fast actually, although I still wish it went faster. As it got closer what surgery actually was started to dawn on me. “Fix it, just fucking fix it” were my thoughts for so long that I didn't immediately comprehend what that fix was. I'm a pretty healthy fella, and I've certainly never been cut open and had another person rearrange my internal parts. I wasn't really comfortable with this. I've always been slightly scared of needles, they are far from my most favorite of objects in this universe. It dawned on me that a needle was actually not the most terrifying object I was going to face; a scalpel was much scarier, and until now, I never had to fathom one being anywhere near me. I was not okay with this, but if I wanted to walk again, I was going to get over it.

It didn't hurt. So many times I would forget. I would forget that there was something wrong. Drift off to think about the bike ride I could be on, or where I felt like walking Oy, then I'd open my eyes and see my crutches and think “fuck”, while hoping this was some sort of trick, a mistake—any minute I would get a phone call saying, “oh, that wasn't an x-ray of your leg, you're fine”. I would blink and the crutches would be gone and I would look at Oy and go, “lets walk”. It didn't hurt, I couldn't see it. I kept hoping it would just go away, disappear into the abyss where it came from.

I waited, and waited. July 3 was coming, but so goddamned slowly. Finally a week before, the pre op.

A 6 inch cut. A fucking 6 inch cut through my flesh and muscle to scoop out the “stuff”, then a bone graft/metal plate, that's what they were going to do.

Even after the surgery, within 2 years there was up to a 20% recurrence rate, which I was not excited about. A recurrence meant another surgery. Up to 3 surgeries could be needed.

Cancer was still not 100% off the table. 95% chance that this was benign, but the pathology report pretty much said the exact composition was strange given my age—it was typical (and even normal) for what would be found in someone 15-25, not a 31 year old. They could either do months of biopsy samples, or go in, take it out and test it on the spot. If it was fine, they would continue with the surgery. If it was cancer they would close me up, and come up with plan “b” which would require me losing part of or all of my hip in another surgery. I wouldn't know until I woke up. The thought of waking up from the surgery to have the Dr. tell me that news was almost unbearable. I was holding on so far, a little pushed and worn, but holding on—if I woke up to that news i'd lose it, I knew it, and that in itself terrified me. To see the horizon of how much shit I could handle scared me. The idea of going through with this surgery only to have to do more nearly brought me to tears. I was terrified in a way I had never been before. I was so fucking helpless.

Prior to this experience I think I had never truly known fear. I had known the trivial lookalikes. I was scared, really really really fucking scared.

It is one thing to “believe in yourself”, you know, overcome those mental barriers that the world puts in front of you. It is quite another thing to believe in your subconscious self, to believe that after being cut open your body knows what to do, can heal itself, and overall keep you alive while sustaining major damage.

The night before the surgery I was terrified. I might've actually hugged Oy for over 3 hours. I told him he better not let anything go wrong, as if he had that power.

The morning of I hopped in my parents car and went off to Morgantown.

I had never been in a surgery waiting room, the screens showing the patient numbers and their status reminded me of a mechanic shop with a fancy status display. I felt like I was going into the “shop”. The surgeons all came into the waiting room after the surgery and gave anxious families the news. I only saw good news. This vision of “bad news” coming to my parents who were waiting horrified me.

I was called to go into prep, went back and got ready. The last thing I remember was laying on a solid table in the operating room, and the surgeon saying, “you won't remember any of this”.

I woke up muttering, “ouch, ouch, ouch”. The nurse said, “don't you worry, i'll take care of that”. She did.

I insisted “the biopsy, what were the results?”, “how did the surgery go?”, “am I okay?”. The woman said, “I don't have any of the info”, then increased my drugs.

Finally I heard no cancer. Everything went well and as planned.

I was “moved” onto a hospital bed in an inpatient room. I saw my parents and my friend who came to see me. I cried. I simply fucking cried. As someone who experienced it from the patient side, if you ever have a friend having surgery, go see them when they are done. It matters.

I'll leave out the details of that night. The people in the room with me were worse than reality TV obnoxious, and I personally did not enjoy most of my scheduled activities.

In the morning the physical therapist came to see me. A young girl, mid twenties. She smiled at me, gave me a pair of hospital pants and said, “put these on, we are going to go for a short stroll on your crutches”.

Twenty minutes later when I still couldn't get my right leg in, she helped. They were not kidding when they warned me about what happens when muscle is cut. The entirety of my leg pretty much went straight and stiff.

The therapist laughed and said, “Know how that really hurts when you even bend it a tiny bit? Well, you're going to have to get through that, and keep bending it, all the time, until it no longer hurts.”

I hobbled down the hallway with her for a few feet and then back to my bed. Just the vibration from using crutches hurt, and I was heavily drugged. I got back into bed and they said, “ok, we can work on sending you home—you'll be out about noon”.

They wheeled me to the front where I got into my parents car. It took a long time to get in, it was really all I could do to bend me knee enough to fit it inside the door. Those muscles were not interested in moving.

I closed my eyes and just about woke up in Delaware at my parents house (I got out a few times but really I was in a full drug haze).

The first few days, I slept, ate, slept.

I was a jerk, I read somewhere that berries help heal wounds fastest and I bugged my parents for endless supplies of organic blueberries and strawberries. My parents are amazing and got them for me. That kale, broccoli, organic chicken and eggs were just about all I would eat. OJ, almond milk and water is all I would drink—no useless calories were going in.

By day 3 I was off of the heavy pain drugs. The haze cleared. By day 4 I was really up and moving, almost as good as pre surgery. By day 6 the wound was healed (or the surface at least), and day 8 after surgery my parents brought me back to Frostburg, I was ready to go.

My mind is still blown by how fast it seems to be healing. I'm not done yet. It could be 6 weeks or more until the bone is healed enough to hold weight again, but this is the upside of the experience I hope. I'm ready for a break in the universes choice of “surprises”, maybe it could switch into “baked goods” mode.

This experience really made me appreciate my friends and family. My friends who went to Dr's apts with me, brought me food, groceries, cookies. My friends who have been helping with my grass, or watching Oy during the times I couldn't. My friends who offered moral support or offered to help, even though I said no often, I really appreciated the gesture (I'm really stubborn and independent, sorry!). My family who stood by me this entire time ready to step in and help at any moment, and who took care of me when I couldn't take care of myself. Really, I love all of you—as much as I don't like asking for help, I could not have done this one alone. Thank you.

Repair and maintenance. Part 1.

I pinched a nerve, that is what I said to myself. I went for a walk mid February and my leg hurt a bit. My back, and my hip. I pinched a nerve, it was that simple. I would let it rest a few days, and never look back.

It didn't get better. I said, “screw it” and started walking again. Mid March, spring was coming, and a stupid pinched nerve wasn't going to stop me. I would fight through it. I walked. When it was warm, I biked. It hurt, but not enough to stop me.

Mid April, it still hurt. Weird, stuff usually heals. One day I was working on a piece of machinery and lifted it a few times. It weighed about 150#, not a huge deal. I hurt, bad. Could barely walk for a week. It was time to see a chiropractor about this stupid pinched nerve.

Went to 2 different ones. It was feeling better, healed or not, my mind said I was better. Fixed. I wasn't going on long walks, but I was biking. I was going to get better. Period. This nerve was going to heal!

I remember the day after one of the appointments, I felt great and was pondering a nice bike ride. I was sitting on a bench swing and the wood gave way on one of the supports. I fell 2 ft onto my hip. It should not have been a big deal. I laid there for probably 30 minutes, beyond pain. If I moved I was going to vomit. Finally, I decided it was time to stop being a wimp and walk inside, drink some water and move along.

It took 30 minutes to walk 50ft. I grabbed some water, my mp3 player, sat on the couch and digested the pain—let it run it's course so I could move on. This was a good day and this stupid pinched nerve was not going to ruin it. Screw chronic pain. I relaxed and resolved the bike ride would go as planned.

A simple 10 mile ride, no big deal. I went out. For perhaps the first time ever, I cut the ride short and only did 7 miles. It felt like someone was plucking the entire nerve running from my back to my foot every time I moved my leg. I got home and sat down, frustrated.

I thought to myself, “okay, take it easy a bit”. I did. That was late April. For the next 2 weeks, I barely walked, but I did bike. In total I biked over 300 miles this spring, all of that unknowingly on a broken hip. A hip bone that was so weak that back in February the simple act of walking on it had fractured it, but I didn't know that yet. I was fine; figuring out how to wade through chronic pain, but fine.

Chronic pain is an experience you cannot understand from observation, I had always thought you could. Watching and sympathizing with someone in chronic pain is not the same as enduring it. It de-saturates life. It complicates every action, every moment. You are not free, you are a prisoner inside your own body where pain is dolled out randomly but consistently. Some-times you have the illusion of freedom, of health, but it is a ruse which is cut short randomly—try living your life when you are not sure when or where your ability to function will be cut off, that is chronic pain.

Mid May when it still didn't feel right I decided I needed to try a different chiropractor, after all, why couldn't anyone fix this pinched nerve? I didn't get it. This time, on a “feeling” I went to a chiropractor that could also do x-rays.

I went down on a Monday morning, the chiropractor talked to me for about 40 minutes about how my hip was probably out of alignment and how we would fix it. Right before we started he said, “I always take x-rays just to be sure”, so we casually did an x-ray of my hip.

Immediately, he said, “You got a big problem—see that white area, that is where bone should be but isn't.” This was followed by, “You are going to need surgery and might have bone cancer”. “Don't jump, you don't have much bone left”.

An hour later I was waiting for a CT scan. Cancer?! And where the hell did my bone go?! You know you are having a bad day when the news that you only need major hip surgery was in fact the best possible news you were going to get. I waited about 2 hours for the radiologist to read the scan. His view: “See an orthopedic doctor immediately. Walking might break the bone”.

I was amazingly fortunate and 3 days later was in an orthopedic surgeons office. The bone was clearly broken in a few places. There was a tumor in my hip bone, and it had destroyed an awful lot of the bone. I was going to need surgery, but not yet. Cancer was back on the table. I was told to be “careful”, no impacts, but walking was ok.

A few days later I was scheduled to be in an orthopedic oncologists office. A good friend went with me, and we had just finished a short stroll around Morgantown and had an amazing lunch. Walking barely hurt at all, I thought maybe things were even healing. I was actually certain that things were healing. My spirits were high, I was nervous but optimistic. I figured he'd go, “Yeh, no big deal. We'll get you fixed and out the door soon.”

“You have a big problem” were his first words when he walked through the door. “You don't have enough bone left to safely support your weight, no walking, no driving, no pressure on that leg at all, or else you will break it”. He went on to say, “60% chance that is not cancer, but you will need a biopsy and we will go from there.”

I went home shocked to the entire core of my being. 40% chance I had cancer. No walking, no driving, no independence.

Two days later I got a call scheduling the biopsy. They were going to jab a needle into my hip bone while I was in a CT scan. I hate needles. I wasn't thrilled about cancer either, but I really, really hate needles.

Again, my friend went with me. We sat for hours waiting (hospitals seem to run a few hours late all the time). I am rarely genuinely scared, but this was one of those times I was. They were going to jab a needle through my hip bone into this tumor, and then tell me if I had cancer. No part of that was pleasant sounding.

While we were waiting there was a child in the hallway crying, “I want to go home, I want to go home.” I wanted to go over to him, sit on the floor and scream with him. I wanted to go home. In my entire life, there may never have been a time I wanted to go home more than that moment.

They finally called me back to get prepped. I didn't faint when they put the iv in, but I hated it. When they finally said they were going to take me to the operating room I was in full resigned terror; they were going to knock me out, then do their thing—hopefully i'd wake up.

I did wake up, in the middle of the biopsy. I screamed, “I'm awake, please, please, knock me back out”. I was strapped down. My leg was numbed with local anesthesia, but I felt what I thought was a jackhammer hitting my leg. “Crack”, “Crack”, I only heard it a few times before I went back into unconsciousness.

I waited. The first few days I didn't think about it. The results take time. By day 7 I though I was going to go crazy. It's like living in a limbo where you have no idea what reality you are going to be released into. The possibilities for this ranged from benign to certain death.

Mid morning on day 7 I got the call: benign, but surgery was needed. A thousand pounds evaporated off of my shoulders. I was still not okay, but it wasn't cancer. Everything else was annoying, a horrible inconvenience, but life would go on.

On a side note: I have a new found respect for people with or who have had cancer, not that I didn't greatly respect them before. But, having experienced seven days of not even having it, it's stunning how fast the facade of mental strength you think you have can crumble when something out of your control and potentially deadly comes into your life. In the face of something like that we are so human, so mortal and so fragile that the terror of how vulnerable you really are can sink in and completely undermine whatever “strength” and “resolve” you built your life on.

Surgery was scheduled for 3 weeks later... 21 more days before I even started to recover. Unable to drive, work, or even walk. Fuck—this was going to be hard.

Over the Mountain

Over the mountain.

My relationship with Big Savage Mountain started over ten years ago. I had just moved to Frostburg from Rockville. I was 20, extremely naïve, idealistic and adventurous. It was super bowl Sunday and the Redskins weren't in it, so I didn't care about the game. I didn't know anyone here, really, not one person, and back then I wasn't even half the fluttering social butterfly I've become. It was cold, but not bitter. Snowing, but not heavily. I didn't know the geography, the roads, the trails. I knew North and West. I knew what I wanted to do.

I got up early. Put on the winter clothes I had, which by mountain standards were hardly late summer attire. They were clothes capable of getting you from your car into a building in the suburban DC climate, but I didn't know that; they were winter clothes. I walked out of my Main Street apartment and went west..

The bank thermometer said 24. I thought nothing of it. West, then North, that is what I thought. Before the day was over, I was going to find PA. I was going to go west until I found a road that went north, then I'd go north until I saw a sign that said, “Welcome to Pennsylvania”.

I knew nothing of orographic lift and adiabatic cooling; of “winter”. I walked. Over Big Savage. Walked north through Finzel. No food, no water. PA was close, I knew it. I was cold, but I was determined. The snow was falling heavier, the drifts deeper. I walked.

“Welcome to Pennsylvania”, I had made it. I was cold, tired, hungry, thirsty. Time to go home. I walked fast. I was frozen. I walked as fast as I could to stay warm. I walked south. I walked down the mountain, it was easy. Too easy. I got colder. Painfully cold. I remember trying to comprehend that kind of prolonged cold, it was something I had never felt before. I remember when I got back into town, that feeling of “A few more steps, just a few more”. I remember jumping into the hot shower and thinking the water was fire—it burned. I remember thinking, “hello mountain”.

Now, we are as well met as a boy and a geological formation can be. I learned how to put the right clothes on too.

Since that day I have walked, biked and skied over Big Savage hundreds of times. Today me and my bicycle got to say, “hello again” for the first time this year, and it felt pretty damn good.

Firewood according to Oy

Firewood according to Oy

It was cold and snowy, but it was time to cut firewood. Maybe I am a bit set in my ways, but I always stay one year ahead on firewood; not “I try to”, no, I do, and have ever since I moved into my house 6 years ago and had the option.

I start in March and like to be about done by May. I don't have to be, but procrastination is like nails on a chalkboard to me. Thinking about “not doing” something that I could be doing is intolerable. (Yes, throughout college I was that kid that finished almost every paper the night it was assigned. To a “c” standard of course, no need to overachieve in academia—i know where my priorities are).

I've come up with a host of weak logical reasons that this is an important activity. I think the wood is dryer when you burn it after it is fully seasoned. I value efficiency, and I want every stick that I cut, split, stack, season, carry into my basement, restack and finally burn, to give me the most heat that is possible. The small increase in Btu’s matters to me, especially over a lifetime.

I will pick up little twigs if I drop them—every bit matters, I really believe that, and I live my life that way.

Stocking up also works as a health insurance policy. If I do ever get hurt, I can grudgingly give up the stock pile of heat that I stashed away.

But those reason's are incomplete. If it were up to me (and wood didn't rot), I would probably stock up 25 years worth of wood. When the sun is shinning, it feels good. The chainsaw hums and vibrates as it effortlessly rips the wood. The pieces wait for the wedge to be hammered in followed by a shattering “crack” of finality and permanence as they split into pieces—it is satisfying.

It is zen.

For those of you who are unaware, I am Buddhist. Down to my core. As far back as I can remember I have been.

In my life the dog I live with, Oy, is perhaps the creature I am most fascinated by. When Oy goes for a walk it can be -5 degrees, with a 30mph wind sandblasting us with snow and he has a big grin on his face. He will give me a look that says, “THIS is fun!”.

If it is cold, hot, rainy, whatever weather the universe throws down, it doesn't matter, Oy is outside with me when I cut firewood. He stacks every piece of wood that accidentally falls into his range. Well, he stacks it like a dog would stack it; makes a pile, then relocates it again and again. All the while frolicking and jumping on to me with mud covered paws and a gleam in his eye that says, “THIS is the best thing EVER”.

Sometimes he is cold. He is wet. He is tired. Sometimes he is injured from his own misadventures (did you know a 40# dog can break a 3/8” steel cable on a regular basis?), but he plays; he smiles. He loves the moment; lives the moment, because THAT moment was the best one ever.

He is right. So as I cut wood and did yardwork in the cold and snow the last few days, I thought about him. Cold hands, a runny nose, wet feet, sore arms and back. It is all part of the experience, and the experience could be amazing. If I can't enjoy the activity I'm doing, rather than assume the activity and circumstances are the problem, I think it is likely that I need more practice overcoming the adversity I am presented with.

Rather than say, “If my fingers weren't so cold, I could enjoy this”, I think, “I'm going to learn how to enjoy this with cold fingers”. And then I practice. Again and again, because I'm not a dog, and accepting things as they are is not my natural state of being—I gotta work at it.

“Shut up and smile” his look says to me as he interminably stacks wood in the mud and snow. Smile because it is absurd not to. As a human, I aspire to be mindful and appreciative of life in a way that is innate and effortless to a dog.

So I cut wood, and practice.

Oh, and if you didn't know this about me, I make everything have meaning, then over think it some more for good measure.

The Isolation Experiment

The Isolation Experiment.

Winter in Frostburg.

This was not my first time, nor will it be my last. It's funny how brains work, how humans work, and what deprivation does. We get weird, predictably, but we get so much else too. Days are lost, times are “suggestions” that have no real meaning. But I'm getting ahead of myself; first I should explain my situation and what I was trying to do.

Six months (plus a little more) a year, I run an open studio at Penn Alps (www.spruceforest.org). There, I work on metalwork and interact directly with customers. It is great for production work, and great for paying my bills. It is less great at fostering creativity, which I prefer to do in isolation rather than a social setting. Most of my income is made between May and November, which leaves the other months “free to creative pursuits”. Now, don't start idealizing this, “wouldn't it be great fun to just make art everyday” and so on—yes, it is, but after your few accumulated ideas get completed it gets really hard to continue being creative for months with no immediate incentive. Compound that with years of struggling with “creativity” as a commodity that can be used up, 6 months of “make anything you want” is really a tough order to fill.

Through the years, I have used various methods to deal with the visual artist equivalent of “writers block”. Sometimes a new tool does it, a new technique or a new skill, but this year I wanted more from myself. I wanted to learn how to design; I wanted to understand creativity, what it is, why it is, how to use it, and how to get more from it. I wanted to find where it comes from, and the best way to harvest it.

Some small trick was not going to get the results that I wanted, I really needed to invest, to focus and to put myself in a situation to understand this process, so I chose isolation. This is not the first time I did this, nor is it the most ascetic I have ever been with it; I allowed myself about an hour of “people” a week, less Thanksgiving and New Years. The goal was November 1-March 1, but late February I realized my brain was fried and the gig was up, so I did abort the mission a bit early, but I'm not dogmatic—I'm pragmatic and I don't like the idea of wasted time.

The idea was if I stayed away from people, I would not think about people--I wouldn't put thoughts into my social relationships and it would allow me more time to think about art. It turns out social relationships run deep in surprising ways, and the things we do to maintain them take more time and brain power than I had ever envisioned until I really cut them off.

It was uncomfortable, I'm not going to lie. I am an introvert, really, I am an extreme introvert, but still my brain is wired for people. It is wired for “touch”. What happens to your senses is something I can't explain to you, but I really would recommend going a few months without any substantial physical human contact, it will really make you appreciate the next time you get a hug from a loved one.

No, those sensations, those feelings don't go away, they start out and endure as whispers that periodically say, “you are human, stop trying not to be”. But, they do blend into the background and it is not hard to move past them (although eventually, they win. They always win).

Another problem that has happened -everytime- I have done this experiment is something my hypochondriac friends would laugh at. At the first cough, or the first cut, you illogically bring yourself to the conclusion that you are going to die. To me, this is the most important part of the process, and I have -always- refused to dismiss the illogical “I’m going to die” paradigm. Maybe I am wrong, but I find it extremely important to embrace this. It instills a resolute urgency of “now”, live now. Work now. Speak now. Put everything you have on the table, work as hard as you can, because kiddo, your days are numbered, and that cough—it'll be pneumonia before you know it. And you know what, no one will know, no one will notice that you haven't been around because you set up a situation where not being around is normal. This too is important in the process—the freedom of realizing that “no one is coming” is pivotal.

All mundane things had to be simplified and mechanized as well. Food, clothing, etc, but that was easy.

So, there you have it, step 1 in this experiment, I push my mind to embrace a reality where NOW has urgent gravity, I'm on my own (I have to fully BELIEVE that my social life is closed or else those “whispers” get loud) and the mundane is settled: That is where things get started.

Where do you start a creative pursuit? What is that anyway? I set out wanting to make the best designed metalwork that I had ever done. I wanted to grow as an artist, grow as a person.

I started out by getting rid of that “built up creative energy”. Those projects that had been bouncing in my head for months, well, I made them. All of them. Whether they came out good or bad wasn't the concern to me, I wanted them out of my head. I needed an artistic detox if I was going to get anywhere, so I did just that.

Once those ideas were out in the world, I moved on. I sat. For hours. Days. I listened to music and books. Walked. I thought. I thought about everything under the sun. I meditated. I didn't want to force anything, so I let things just “be”.

I realized that I needed to identify what forms interested me. I needed to understand them. Break them down, dissect them, fully experience them. I looked at books, and magazines of all kinds of art. In my entire life, I don't think I had every studied art so much as I did in the first 4 weeks of this experiment.

I decided I needed to draw what I saw, but I had to change it, interpret it, because my mind could never comprehend what that artist did fully. Make the shapes into me. Make the composition mine. Understand how lines worked in context to other lines.

I got in the habit of drawing, nearly a full sketchbook full in a few weeks. Drawing was not enough. I had to make the 2-d ideas into my reality, translate them into my language. It was like having something to say, but being responsible for creating the words to say it.

Books were everywhere, I couldn't walk without tripping over an art book on most days. Ideas were everywhere. I became focused. I started dreaming shapes, thinking shapes and communicating in shapes. I even stopped having deep conversations with my brilliant dog because I realized all I cared about was shapes and I couldn't verbalize them to him.

Everyday, I was waking up and creating my own words. It was all encompassing, amazing, I really can't describe it well, but the work from this winter speaks it. It was flow, but not a temporary one—it was an enduring flow that was seamless, everything worked. I had converted myself into an efficient art tool, and as a tool, I was self actualized. I could see design, really see it. I understood it, felt it.

But tools are not human and I am. Those whispers, they never did get louder. They never did get more invasive. But, art is a language and once you have nothing left inside you to say, nothing left to interpret from the world around you, all that is left is the whispers of your bare humanity.

I had exhausted my curiosity about art, design and creativity, so it was time to move on. Time to leave my small house, to leave my jewelry shop in the basement and to leave the metal shop in my garage.

Time to take everything I learned and experienced and work it into being a person, an artist; use it as soil to grow in.

That is how the experiment ended. Not with a bang, but with an anti-climatic buzzer—times up, move along.

And that is a very rough synopsis of the isolation experiment.