Hash n' Eggs and the Invisible Jetpack
Howdy partners,
Yesterday, a guy was spotted in airspace at 3,000 feet over LA flying with a jetpack. Pilots in commercial airliners radioed the tower to report the flying man; one pilot said he was barely 300 yards away from his Airbus A321. Yikes. Now we can worry about this? LA traffic WTF!
As kids, we always knew that flying was normal stuff: Superman, duh. Ironman with his suit. Hawkman had wings. Mighty Mouse, way way back. Hovercrafts were going to be available by the time we got our driver's license. Pretty sure. The Air Force had the SR-71 Blackbird, which could fly over three times the speed of sound -- 2,193 mph -- so clearly getting places would get quicker all the time. And if James Bond had a jetpack, most secret agents had to have them.
I have dreamt of flying my entire life. Mostly it is just a function of thinking just the right thoughts and leaning into the wind just the right way and off I go. Arms out. Catching the wind. It isn't scary. It is exhilarating. And it feels right. It feels normal.
During the day though, I make light sculpture. My palette is reflected and refracted photons. These sculptures are internal spaces manifested. I'm not making political statements or riffing on common tropes. I'm not really interested in whether this will "go" with your sofa. (Ok, maybe I am a little bit). There is no agenda. There is only Beauty with a capital "B." These pieces are meant to resonate, to feel familiar and yet fresh. I'm trying to visualize magic, to capture snow in hard sunlight blowing off the roof. Diamond dust. Moon sparkles dancing across the lake at 2 AM feel a particular way -- liquid, platinum, ephemeral... Supercolliders humming organ-pedal bass chords or shrieking in absolute zero vacuums, quartz, schist, red sprites, morning glories, and the tendrils of supernovae remnants collected with a perfect mirror orbiting our tiny and complete sphere. Harmonics. The known and understood with the sublime and ineffable. The feeling of flying without stuff to make you fly...
My pal Wily has a Cessna built the year I was born, and he takes me up now and then for transcendence and breakfast across the lake. Who knew most little airfields have excellent diners? Last week a guy showed up at this little fly-in over in New Hampshire in a sport plane built in 1935 -- no roof, tiny windshield and a quilted red leather cockpit that feels lifted from an old Jag. Both my grandfathers had their own planes. Wish I had been old enough then to go up.
Look at my work with eyes out of time. There is as much Aboriginal dream time as forest walks, Ukiyo-E, pictures of the floating world, as Hubble imagery and Middle Earth and Thor and quantum fields and waves in the sand where the waves break. I have dreamt of flying an F-16 (don't tell Wily). That's in the work too. Maybe you need something on the wall out of time, above this plane, airbourne, quotidian dispelled...
