Two days before I left New York for a residency at IPark in Connecticut I picked up an essay by Bill McKibeen that began “The hawk sat on a limb three feet above my head and did not stir as I walked under – that was the first sign”.
He was describing his time in nature and how after being there for a bit he knew he’d begun to give off calmer vibrations. As I boarded the train in New York city with the frenzy around me heading to IPark for the month of April 2012, it was this calm I was thinking of that ended up infiltrating my thoughts and projects realized there.
The work focuses on the interconnection between the mind, body, nature and culture and is constructed to pull a viewer with me through a symbolic journey. Nature doesn’t deal in things it deals in systems, adding information to matter. Shape is both beauty and function overlapping many systems. Thoreau’s writes of culture as “The Enchanter” and nature as the only way one can answer two simple yet indispensible questions; how much is enough and how do I know what I want? He felt only in nature could you truly hear your own heart, divorced from the influence of the voices of culture.
Alchemy is a philosophical tradition from antiquity looked upon by many as both a science and a spiritual endeavor. Its experiments and inventions occur in communion with nature, invention, experimentation with the physical/material world as well as the investigation/externalization of self. One goal of the scientist therefore, not just material transformation but personal transmutation. It uses complex systems of symbols, individual and universal, integrating the self with the natural world to elevate consciousness. Its exploration of achieving the philosopher’s stone is representative of investigation of the psyche which leads to wholeness and oneness internally through use of physical materials externally. I believe that the objects we surround ourselves with intentionally and unintentionally in our daily lives say a tremendous amount about our individual and collective psyches and my installations aim to highlight this so once the viewer leaves and enters again into their daily life – small moments of this language emerge as symbols and the art “object” dissolves, leaving on the language of symbols.
Goethe studied alchemy as well before he went on to write his famous literary works and other monumental contributions. His study and practice of alchemy contributed greatly to his development of plant morphology and extensive writings on color theory. He believed that the processes that underlie plant growth are reflected in our spiritual development as human beings. In other words, nature was not only a book of knowledge of laws of sciences and behaviors but also a book of knowledge of the individual self and the collective culture. He was an important contribution to the bridge of connection between alchemy and modern science.
My study of these concepts resulted in this film which I made the month I was in the residency.
Principal Photography (Cinematography): Sarah Walko
Additional Footage Cinematography: Christopher Keohane
Written by: (Introduction 2 lines by Bill McKibben) Sarah Walko
Props/Sculptures: Sarah Walko
Edited by: Sarah Walko
Music: Symbiosis Syndicate
Steve Giordano – guitar, guitar synthesizer, piano, keyboard synths and a laptop virtual synth.
John Swana – E.V.I. (electronic valve instrument)
Bob Meashey – trumpet, flugel horn
Joe Mullen – percussion
Symbiosis various guests over the years:
John Mosemann – percussion
Tony Micili – K.A.T. (vibes controller), laptop virtual synth
Peter Cobb – alto sax
Film Stills and Installation Shots:
