“If we are to solve the problem of what to do with our consciousness, we need more astutely constructed models as that consciousness changes, develops. They must be relevant and flexible; and the execution must be fine enough to endure.”

Samuel R. Delaney, “Faust and Archemides” 1968

From my disinherited mother I learned to stay alive by dreaming myself into existence. From her I learned that everything is real. It was a lesson of enormous value to me.

— Jamake Highwater

I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I am doing– John Cage

These quotes explain what I am trying to do with my blog as well as anything. Its about making models in words and pictures that fit the processes occurring in my mind. It is also about creating images and poems that reflect the fact that I am exploring parts of my mind that would be inaccessible to me without the creative process. Some of it is just pure reaction and response to the initial image. I am trying not to let my conscious process have to much influence on the finished piece. Dreaming my art and writing into into existence leads me through process to more of me. The pieces I put here are the ones that reflect the process of exploration, which after all is the edge of existence for all of us.

When we come to the place where our conscious experience meets the vastly larger expanse of the unknown and unthinkable, we need new models to communicate because it is inconceivable from the point of view of our experience. Just because something seems impossible does not mean it will never make the leap into our waking conscious. Everything in our dreams and nightmares is possible however unlikely, and should be accounted for. To do this, artists must make impossible models, scientists must dream magical visions of the improbable, and storytellers must make it all seem like it has already happened. My attempts are not meant to endure but perhaps inspire others to make better more lasting models. The more attempts we make, the more possible paths we have to follow. We just need to keep thinking and unthinking and imagining ourselves into the next present which will only resemble this present. But, whatever is in the next present is here now, though some of it is not coalesced into a form that we can perceived. I may not know what I am doing, but someone else might see something in what I do and make it more accessible to others who might use his or her ideas to change the way the world thinks. That is my motivation for creation, as well as wanting to see the strange and wild creatures that escape from my jungle mind.