I reach for your hand — it’s not there… it’s not there. I look for your smile — it’s not there… it’s not there.
I wonder if I’ve done something wrong. Why did you go? Where have you gone?
I dream of your touch — it’s not real… it’s not real. I want something that I can feel… it’s not real.
I search for a path that leads me to truth… It goes round in circles. It leads me to you.
I wake in the night — There you are. There you are. You shine in the sky — There you are… every star
You hold my hand. You let me hear the love in your voice… it melts all my fears. You walk by my side — you are the breeze… I understand you’re always with me.
I understand you’re always with me You walk by my side
My family has always been the catalyst for my creativity. My passions emerged from the way I grew up in community with this cavalcade of fascinating characters. One of those exceptional eccentrics was my uncle, Johnny – a talented musician and sort of puckish vagabond. He was living in San Bernardino, working as an entertainer at kids’ parties, when he was killed in 1991. I was eight years old.
Johnny was a source of joy in my early life. He would always sing with me and to me, but I can no longer remember his voice. He adored me and held me and played with me, but I cannot remember what his face looked like looking at me. Sometimes I will see a shadow in my periphery and think it’s him leaning casually against a wall, but when I look closer he’s gone. So he has remained a constant presence and influence into adulthood.
This body of work is largely a media study. I wanted to explore ideas of making the invisible visible, and choosing what to reveal and what to conceal. When I was little my dad showed me how two linear-polarized filters could be overlapped perpendicularly to create an opaque barrier, and reflecting on that inspired me to think about ways to use polarized light to create images. This year, I spent months learning the properties of cross-polarized light and the way it can be manipulated by optical isomers to not just create grayscale gradients but to reveal vibrant colors.
This became the inspiration for the portrait of Johnny, who exists in my memory as both a pale figment and brilliant prismatic aurora. Viewed without a filter, Klem is a gray patchwork of film sandwiched between two pieces of plexiglass and encased in packing tape. Through a second filter, the optically active properties of the cellophane tape reveal a form. In the same way Johnny could elevate a quotidian event through impromptu song, I seek to elevate this mundane material into something majestic.
One of the themes that has come up particularly in this work is the idea of forgiveness. It is particularly relevant that I am making this piece right now, because Johnny died at the age of 39, and that is my age right now. This is compounded by the fact that this work will debut on the same day that I am called to provide a victim statement at the parole hearing for Johnny’s murderer.
My life’s mission has been shaped by his brutal death and its aftermath. Our carceral system is a failure, because it neither prevents these tragedies from occurring nor provides restitution to the parties involved. It is purely punitive, and utterly ineffective in its supposed purpose of public safety. I instead am dedicated to exposing and dismantling the systems of oppression that breed violence, seeking to divert the disenfranchised away from desperate circumstances. In this way, I hope to protect other families from the pain my family endured.
Perhaps that’s my Catholic guilt: the notion that if you are not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem (though I rationally understand that I can be actively fixing a problem and still be complicit in it). I have a pained relationship with the Church, never fully immersed in it but never fully free of its influence. I admire the historical, not-white Jesus for his activism and pacifist response to the inequities of his time. I identify with his call to forgive and further ground myself in vulnerability, gradually learning to disassemble the armor forged by my eight-year-old self. It’s a slow process.
I don’t have the authority to forgive Johnny’s killer for what he did to my uncle – the only person who could do that is dead. I don’t know if I can forgive him for what he did to me, or my family. But if I could forgive him, I could forgive anyone, and that is just what I aim to do in As Crimson.
“Come now and let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they will be like wool.”
(Isaiah 1:18)
In a send-up of the confessional booth, a contemporized aesthetic condenses the stodgy stall into a kiosk with a simple interface, ditching the priest to streamline the confession process. Using the properties of polarized light, translucent LCD monitors display a series of corrupted photo manipulations on the outward-facing side of the kiosk while maintaining the confidentiality of the confessor’s message on the back. In the spirit of anticapitalism, there are no cookies, breadcrumbs, or key loggers… the confession disappears with the press of a button, remaining between the user and whatever god they pray to, and absolution is secured.
Have you examined your conscience lately?
Do you feel remorse for your actions?
Guilt for your inaction?
How about feeling bad just for being alive?
We can help!
You are what we call a "sinner." But don't worry: everybody is! After all, our first sin is existing at all.
If being a sinner is getting you down, you may want to try Confession, a simple and painless method of removing stubborn feelings of blame, shame, regret, liability, or failure.
But don't take our word for it - try it yourself!
Type your most infamous faults and transgressions into the box at the right to receive your Penance. With zero accountability, absolution is guaranteed!
This free service is offered by sinners, for sinners. We understand that forgiveness can be hard to come by, and we want to help. That's why these ethical pardons are not saved, key-logged, or tracked in any way. Just press ENTER and your indiscretions will be delivered straight to the deity of your choice.*
Go ahead - type away to see if Confession is right for you! You'll be glad* you tried it.
* I make no promises or guarantees that any goddess, god, demigod, daemon, spirit, idol, omnipotent power, almighty creator, universal life force or other divine being will hold you as harmless as I do. Please consult the texts that came with your religion for specific rules. Civil penalties may apply. This service is provided at-will and as-is. I have already released myself of any sense of responsibility or contrition that may arise with your consequences. Use at your own risk.
This piece is a collaboration with Raul Habib, who created the digital imagery, and pianist Isabella Cao. The programming was greatly assisted by Antoinette LaFarge and Brian Bowman, and the kiosk constructed in cooperation with Aidan McDonald, Jason Burns, and Sam Scharf.
Aidan McDonald framing the kiosk. 5/30/2022Jason Burns taking a panel measurement. 6/1/2022
This was originally assigned as 20 Things in 20 Days, but then shrank to scale as social distancing required us to work from home without access to the studio or gallery spaces we had originally planned to use. The idea was to make 10 artworks – presumably one per day – and think about how to present them together as one work. That instruction shifted to creating these daily works as sketches and then selecting 2 or 3 to further refine.
I committed to the idea of creating a series of tiny mandalas or meditations. I planned to present them together by merging them into one interactive sculpture that would feature each image as an individual vignette. I know it’s weird, but I collect toilet paper and paper towel cores, and my original idea was to make circular mandalas that we looked at through those tubes. But then I was watching Dr. Who and thought of how the TARDIS is “bigger on the inside,” so I got the idea to make kaleidoscopic infinity mirrors (note the one inspired by Yayoi Kusama’s Broad installation) in a square formation.
Usually a kaleidoscope is held up to a light source, but in considering how to connect the mandalas I came up with the idea of assembling them around a central light source. For that core structure, I considered various geometric shapes that could create enough uniform sides to display the requisite 10 Things, and discovered that a rhombicuboctahedron would give me 18 square panels to work with. Each would then have a mirror tube extending outward, creating a series of portals through which one could peek into the various expansive worlds.
A rhombicuboctahedron has 26 sides: 18 square panels and 8 equilateral triangles
The primary challenge I faced was how to create the mirrors. I was considering slicing up a mirror, but would need to be able to bias-cut the edges in order to create the kaleidoscopic effect. Front-silvered mirrors are very expensive and extremely delicate. I wanted plane mirrors, which are polished for precision so that they produce the most perfect reflections, but it became obvious that with the resources and timeframe available that would be difficult to get. Still, I wanted a highly reflective surface, and I was not sure that could be achieved with a mirror spray paint. I ended up ordering reflective mylar, which was only available in large rolls, so I expect to be incorporating this into my works for a while.
The next major challenge was creating and assembling the artwork. I would have liked to have used translucent vellum, but I already had marker paper, which is thinner but still translucent enough to diffuse light and designed to absorb ink. I found that in order to get a really saturated color when the artwork is lit from behind, I needed to draw on both the front and back sides of the paper. I could get different effects by only drawing on one side or the other.
I wanted to build the rhombicuboctahedron out of plastic and mount each each drawing on one of the panels, but I did not have a sheet of acetate to cut that out of (I tried cutting pieces from the lids of store-bought cookies, but it really needed to be cut out of a single piece for stability). In a sample piece, I reinforced the edges of the market paper with hot glue, but that distorted the light around the edges once it was illuminated. Instead, I relied on the tubes, glued to the drawings and structural elements, to create an exoskeleton for the paper core.
The tubes were cut from old cardstock boards left over from shipping comic books. They were trimmed down to 6″ lengths and scored to create four 2″-wide panels (to align with the 2″ x 2″ artworks), with a half-inch closure. Twelve were designed with connective flaps, but six had no edge pieces to connect to and required that I design additional support pieces.
The hollow paper core is about 5″ in diameter, and I wanted to place a small, battery-operated LED light inside. I was able to order a 4-bulb light kit from evandesigns.com, which I arranged around a piece of heavy-gauge wire so that it would not shake or shift as the piece is rotated. I also spliced in a set of four nano lights that appear inside the Kusama-inspired vignette, to give added depth to that piece.
This is the current state of the piece, with everything attached and lit up.
I am looking into options for creating an outer shell, so that it is like a globe with little light portals. Until then, I’m very happy with where this piece has taken me.
In the Spring semester, my choir will be singing Beethoven. He was considered a great composer long before his hearing loss began impacting his work, but as his deafness became more acute he began breaking convention and creating his most revolutionary music. In that same way, the concert is dedicated to people who – not only despite a disability, but perhaps because of it – transformed their field.
In doing some preliminary research about this, I came across Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt Testament, which is a letter to his brothers when he was 30. He talked about increasing isolation, and withdrawing from social engagements; as a musical maestro he couldn’t admit that he was losing his hearing for fear of losing the confidence of his patrons. He even admits suicidal thoughts. But this was when he decided to persist, because, “It was impossible for me to leave this world until I had brought forth everything that was within me.”
Another hearing-impaired pianist/composer, Jennifer Castellano, said in an interview, “It seems that when one is faced with an obstacle such as hearing loss, it not only forces him or her to work even harder, but it also humbles them. Another thing that people need to realize is that the level of musicianship is not determined by how well a person hears but rather how well a person listens.”
I know that I have had hearing loss in at least one of my ears since childhood, but I never considered myself “hearing-impaired.” I never thought about the ways I might have learned to compensate for that or how it has shaped the way I move through the world, until a few months ago when a friend experienced sudden acute hearing loss. It was a dark time for her, and made me reflect on my own condition.
We commiserate over tinnitus. I have never not-heard it. I sometimes say that angels are sending me a message using ancient technology, akin to AOL’s dial-up tones. I also call it my private symphony, and celebrate the fact that it is such an exclusive experience: it happens inside my head and nowhere else. What can I say – I like being an insider. I was a hipster before hipsters were cool.
Part of my friend’s anxiety was induced by bouts of vertigo during the onset of her symptoms. I can identify. Any microscopic change to the inner ear can impact hearing, pain, balance, pressure… When I was little, I would wake up crying in the night because “the room was spinning.” My mom installed an Anti-Spin Light (a nightlight), the same way she might have posted a No Monsters Allowed sign on my closet door. She thought it was just placating some childhood nervousness. Actually, it gave me a focal point in the dark so I wouldn’t feel like I was constantly falling into an abyss. I could figure out which way was “up” and stopped flinging myself off of the top bunk bed.
My hearing – and lack thereof – has also contributed to plenty of mix-ups and oft-hilarious confusions. I hear things and then have to figure out what was actually being said. This leaves a lot open to my very active imagination as I insert consonants that I didn’t catch between the vowels that I think I heard. It’s like an eternal game of charades, to which I add a heavy dose of absurdism.
My friend is back to dancing on bars in rhinestone-studded cowboy boots. She’s fine, now, despite her hearing. But this summer’s experience planted in me a little earworm that I should do something about this. I can’t remember the last time I had my hearing checked. But even if I do… so what? Will “knowing” change anything? Perhaps I could get the rig described by composer Richard Einhorn… but for now I look forward to singing Beethoven in the Spring as-is.
Update:
Well, we could not have suspected the ways that Spring 2020 would be derailed, especially for activities like group singing and live concerts. As we physically distanced and sheltered at home, my classmates shared this beautiful performance:
No one seems to be able to decide what Los Angeles “is.” Is it awful? Is it everything? Yes-and-no. It’s a paradoxical thought experiment in action. Whatever you are asking, it is both that and not-that until the instant you observe its that-ness or not-that-ness. And then you look again, and it is-and-isn’t that thing again until the next observation.
Example: is Los Angeles a city steeped in history?
El Pueblo de Los Angeles (yes)
LA Live (no)
Historic houses in West Adams (yes)
Pre-fab kit houses and and tract homes in Torrance (yes)
Public housing projects (yes)
Postmodern fishtank-looking behemoths in WeHo (no)
Venice Beach (yes)
Venice Beach (no)
Blink and you’re beginning the experiment anew. Did someone install an antique picture frame in a chain link fence overlooking a construction site? That’s genius! Did someone tag their name in sharpie on a succulent leaf? That’s pathetic. Both, simultaneously, until they are observed.
