I am full of energy but stuck in frustration. I look at the two-page long to do list and I don’t know where to start. Everything needs to be done; yet nothing is urgent. I want to write, but everything is coming out in the wrong tone of voice.

I go out [...]]]>

I am full of energy but stuck in frustration. I look at the two-page long to do list and I don’t know where to start. Everything needs to be done; yet nothing is urgent. I want to write, but everything is coming out in the wrong tone of voice.

I go out to meet with some fellow travelers, a couple of guys who did the Mongol Rally last year, for a little reconnaissance.

The energy shifts as soon as I meet these guys. There is much talk of travel, the rally, the route they took, what happened on the road, bribes paid, mechanical breakdowns, and personal breakdowns. The connection is immediate and it tastes like fresh oranges straight from the trees of Tuscany, still warm from the sun.

By the end of the evening, I am turned on. I am excited by the common language we share and drunk on the passion for adventure.

I know well enough the sense of desire I feel is an illusion. What I want to understand is how we get from something intangible (a conversation, a sense of connection) to something psychical and measurable.

Perhaps ease and grace is the answer.

The rare occasion on which we find ourselves communicating with ease and grace is hard to come by. The complicated system of abstract symbols we call language trips us up and makes arriving on the same wave length difficult. Too often we don’t truly hear what is being said and are just reacting to what we think we heard. It is challenging enough to really understand and hear what is being communicated, much less to arrive at the point in which few words are needed to reach an understanding. Is it a wonder then, when we do find ourselves in a place in which we can speak without too many abstract symbols, we find ourselves turned on?

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I have a confession.

I don’t know how to function without a To Do List. Actually, I have multiple To Do Lists. Electronic ones, ones written on post-its, ones written in moleskin notebooks, ones written on a piece of 8.5×11 paper folded in half the long way. There is a [...]]]>

I have a confession.

I don’t know how to function without a To Do List. Actually, I have multiple To Do Lists. Electronic ones, ones written on post-its, ones written in moleskin notebooks, ones written on a piece of 8.5×11 paper folded in half the long way. There is a complicated system at work between all the different lists and they keep me on task, moving all of my creative endeavors and businesses forward.

I also work pretty much non-stop.

If it has been a good week, I will allow myself to take half a day off, goof off a little and do what I want.

Most of the time, I end up working on those half days anyways because there are very few things I do that do not feed into the photography, the writing, the gallery, or the traveling. So then I really just work 7 days a week, non-stop.

Oh, yes. Oh, how I see the difference.

Right there and then, I make the decision that I am declaring today to be a “what I WANT to do day.” Sure, there are things that I really should and need to get done, but I am simply spinning my wheels. So, no more. Today will be an “I want” day and nothing else. No more looking at my endless “To Do” lists and feeling like I should do x, y and z. Oh, what a glorious day it will be. What do I want to do? Make breakfast. That sounds great. Go to yoga. Fantastic…then what? I want to finish writing the article I am in the middle of. Wait, you mean I want to work on the very thing that I had started to do this morning when I got feed up and angry at 8:30am. Oh but there is a subtle but important difference at play here.

You do what you want to do. That is how the psyche is wired. Then why not work within our natural inclinations and speak in the language that makes us the happiest? What if a simple change in language is all it takes to make it through the TO DO list?

As an experiment, for the next week, I will only do what I want to do. I will phrase every task as a “want” rather than a “should” and see how far I get. Join me in this experiment in precision of language and let me know how you do.

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Words Are Like Loaded Guns
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A Confession and a Radical Thought 

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The ultimate dream of any creative is to have unlimited (or enough) resources (namely time and money) to do what they love, to practice their art and awake from the pesky daily routine of laundry, bill paying, and livelihood earning, to realize it was all just an uncomfortable, sweat drenched nightmare. [...]]]>

The ultimate dream of any creative is to have unlimited (or enough) resources (namely time and money) to do what they love, to practice their art and awake from the pesky daily routine of laundry, bill paying, and livelihood earning, to realize it was all just an uncomfortable, sweat drenched nightmare. For some, the dream reality is a room with a view, a laptop and an endless supply of coffee refilled on demand. Or perhaps, it is the perfect size studio with Les Paul / Fender guitars lined up like toy soldiers and all night jam sessions with mates. For others, it is a passport, accepted in 99% of all countries, a secret stash of discontinued Fuji film and a super hero assistant who provides all logistical support back at home base.

To have enough resources to create. To stop struggling and have everything be easy.

The phone rings with an area code you don’t recognize. “Hi I am calling from the MacAuthur Foundation, may I please speak with…” You’ve just won the MacArthur Genius Grant! It awards an unrestricted 1/2 million dollar grant, over 5 years, for you to keep on doing what you love to do.

At first you are so excited to pick the location for that room with a view. Maybe you are considering the best sound proofing for the studio. Or you’ve got google maps up in front of you and are trying to work out an around the world ticket. Then this new reality quietly sets in. Struggle and suffering is a thing of the past. Scrappy, hungry and lean has always been your modus operandi and now you don’t need to be that anymore. What are you going to do with all those bits of you?

Does it surprise you to know that easy is harder than struggling?

Somehow we’ve been culturally conditioned to believe the rewards are proportional to the amount of suffering we go through. Somehow we believe the work is not good unless we paid for it with a pound of flesh and more.

Yet that is clearly not true.

The best work we do, we do not have to slug through. My best images, stories, and/or entrepreneurial ventures are nearly effortless. I show up. I am me and it all comes out, together, perfect, easy. It is the shoots that I spend hours wrangling into shape, the stories that I write over and over again, the recipes that I try to perfect that feel….forced.

I can hear your counterargument now. What? Oh, that there is a difference between actual creative efforts and making a pile of cash and/or other resources magically appear. But the creative act itself is an act of magic. This story, this song, this image did not exist until you reached into the ether and pulled it into being. You have willed it into existence. Why must we put what we need to create in a different category? My question is this: do we choose to struggle and do things the hard way because we are conditioned into believing that it is the only way? How far have we bought into the construct of “No Pain, No Gain?!” How much of our resistance is because the lack-of, the struggle, the being-without serves as an excuse from actually delivering the goods? If you had what you needed today, at your fingertips, on your terms, then you would have to deliver.

You know struggling is an option. Consider for a moment that ease is also an option. 

Having and effortlessness are harder mindsets to live in than not having and struggling. You’ve never had it before. Struggle has its own toothbrush at your place. These are experiences and mindsets that you are well familiar with. Allowing yourself to receive what you’ve requested from the universe is an act that requires more guts and conviction than struggling through three day-jobs.

Maybe what we must first learn is that ease is an option and master the talent of receiving.

Related Posts:
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Your Life is a de Kooning
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I have been grounded in the US for over 6 months now. My last major adventure was India (country 21 for Wok the Dog) and I’ve stayed put for an incredibly long amount of time. These last 6 months have not been without adventures but they have been [...]]]>

I have been grounded in the US for over 6 months now. My last major adventure was India (country 21 for Wok the Dog) and I’ve stayed put for an incredibly long amount of time. These last 6 months have not been without adventures but they have been of a different variety than those I have while traveling abroad.

Well….that is about to change. Several months back, I impulsively snagged a spot in the 2012 Mongol Rally. The Mongol Rally is adventure philanthropy at its best. A 10,000 mile overland drive through some of the toughest terrains in the world, going from the UK to Mongolia, across 3 deserts and 5 mountain ranges. It will be one wicked, unpredictable adventure while raising money for charity (The Adventurist have raised over 2 million British Pounds).  Sounds fantastic doesn’t it? YES! YES is what I say to an adventure of this magnitude. So, I impulsively signed up for a major car rally, without teammates, not knowing exactly how I would be able to pull it off, and unable to drive a stick shift (yep…none of those things stopped me from saying yes to adventure.)

Between now and the official rally kick off, I will update you on rally preparation, from visas to travel logistics to the car search to fundraising and maybe an occasional “AM I INSANE?!” freak out or two in addition to the regular SpyTravelogue Posts. Naturally, I will get myself into a ridiculous amount of trouble and promptly report back to you this summer.

Our tentative route (the rally has no specific route — you can get to Mongolia any way you choose and there is no organized support along the way) at the moment look  something like this:

Czech Republic Kick Off — Slovakia — Hungry —- Romania — Serbia — Bulgaria — Turkey —- Georgia — Azerbaijan — {Cross the Caspian Sea and avoid being captured by Pirates} — Turkmenistan — Uzbekistan — Kazakhstan — Russia —- Mongolia !!!

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What a year.
What a hard, stressful, infuriating, blessed, expanding, adventure filled, generous, trying, challenging, orgasmic, mind blowing 365 days.

6 group shows, 3 solo exhibits and 1 big country completed for Wok the Dog.

A new book is in motion and Wok the Dog is getting closer [...]]]>

What a year.
What a hard, stressful, infuriating, blessed, expanding, adventure filled, generous, trying, challenging, orgasmic, mind blowing 365 days.

6 group shows, 3 solo exhibits and 1 big country completed for Wok the Dog.

A new book is in motion and Wok the Dog is getting closer and closer to becoming the book I dream up so many years ago.

I lost a few friends last year and made many more new ones. I wish I could lavish kisses upon those who I cannot longer reach but I sure am glad you are here with me.

Tears diluted my coffee on occasion. Your love made me smile ALWAYS and I felt you in the sacred truth of my heart.

As we stand on the transition of endings and beginnings, here are a few words from friends that have struck a chord with me:

Tricia suggested maybe what we need is to fail harder.
Fail. Fail harder. We will fail harder so we can success beyond our wildest dreams. Okay. Done and done.

Danielle LaPorte bid me to invoke this little prayer:
We are here now
to give witness
to a shared truth
that absolutely everything is progress
that we have all that
we need
that brilliance is unfolding
here and now
and so it is.
now, let’s rock it.

And finally my dear friend Steve Almond (a fantastic author…one of my favorite and one you absolutely should read) commands that we
“Go forth and love unreasonably!”

If you are getting this, it is because I want you to bare witness to my promise.
It is because I will stand with you, your hand in mine and rock it out.
If you are getting this, it is because I love you unreasonably so.

Happy endings and glorious new beginnings….

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I had a lovely meal with Sasha Wolf (fantastic gallery owner and friend) and we talked shop with belly warming fire of Makers Mark. One of the things we talked about is what separates the great artist from merely a good artist. Sasha believes in order for an artist to [...]]]>

I had a lovely meal with Sasha Wolf (fantastic gallery owner and friend) and we talked shop with belly warming fire of Makers Mark. One of the things we talked about is what separates the great artist from merely a good artist. Sasha believes in order for an artist to transcend into “greatness” the artist needs a profound understanding of themselves .. intensely, intimately, painfully so.

There are days when I struggle with my “humanness.” On those days, when asked how I am, I would reply, “I’m having trouble with the being human part.” A quizzical brow. “I wish I was a robot.” Sure, as a robot I might not be able to feel the pork fat melt in my mouth or the intricate pleasure of a warm, melty chocolate cake, but I certainly wouldn’t have to suffer the depths of my feelings either.

Then, a few days ago Huge MacLeod send out this cartoon:

and he says “no matter how big a castle we may build for our self, no matter how big an army we may raise, our human frailty remains. And that’s where the most interesting art comes from…”

Maybe its good that we’ve been broken open.

Broken open so we can dig deeper into the mess that is our insides, if for nothing else, for the betterment of out art.

Broken open to let the light in.

Broken open to the the light shine out.

Related Post:
Rewrite. Reclaim. Reprogram.
Forgive Yourself
A Mouthful of Questions
Standing at the Edge of the World, at the Edge of Oneself

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I get twitchy as soon as November rolls around. The travel bug is a constant affliction and the desire to pull out my passport for new adventures is an uninterrupted flame that burns deep. Yet the siren call I hear as soon as we come down from our sugar high is [...]]]>

I get twitchy as soon as November rolls around. The travel bug is a constant affliction and the desire to pull out my passport for new adventures is an uninterrupted flame that burns deep. Yet the siren call I hear as soon as we come down from our sugar high is less for adventure and more for anywhere but here.

The holidays are hard.

November and December arrive with their own set of baggage, turning jolly Santa into overlord of elf labor, driving mindless consumption. The roaring fireplace is all of sudden the symbolic hell fire I am burning in as I sip eggnog; time with family is pure purgatory. What is meant to be joyous turns into obligation and the party can’t seem to end soon enough. For all of those reasons, I suddenly become the anywhere-but-here woman and I hop on the next flight out.

When my marriage came to an end, I couldn’t listen to some of my favorite bands, as there was so much history and love shared in those songs with my ex. I didn’t want to lose the music that I love. I didn’t want those songs to have power over me, turning what I enjoy into what I fear and dread. So I would listen to “our” bands and “our” songs over and over again until I could hear them without tears over what we’d lost and instead smile for what we’d shared (it took a lot of tears to get there.)

The reprogramming started with Thanksgiving.

A new friend invited me to join her up in Maine for the weekend and I impulsively said yes. The invitation was like an affirmation from the gods. Patty and I didn’t know each other well before she so generously invited me for a long weekend and it was glorious! Patty gathered six of her friends from various parts of the world and parts of her life, assembled us into a log cabin for a weekend full of eating, drinking, marry making among the white birch tree of Maine. Every evening we would have a nightly toast, before dinner, the seven of us would share a libation and be grateful for all that we are blessed with. There was something special about this ritual. There was something magical about being grateful for the strangers who had become your friends night after night. The toast bonded us and became something we looked forward to. On Thanksgiving day, we shared turkey and an endless amount of pie with friends of friends of friends of Patty’s family. The connection between our host and Patty are many degrees apart and even further from us, the vagabond troop of friends. Yet Mark and his family welcomed a random group of strangers to their Thanksgiving table and showered us with love and generosity. As I sat at the dinner table and listened to Mark’s toast, I felt like a pilgrim. I thought, “THIS. This is Thanksgiving!”

A warm, loving, gratitude filled weekend was topped off with a 120lb pig roast. For a spy who travels the world documenting food markets, the pig roast was a dream come true. How could a woman like me not love a pig roast!?Thanksgiving officially reprogrammed! This is what it could be. Every previous bad example, family drama, passive aggressive behavior erased. From now on, Thanksgiving will officially be filled with fantastic food, loving friends and an overwhelming sense of gratitude and delicious inner peace.The next act of reprogramming was a little harder.

I’ve always been my own person, chosen my own path in life and did what I thought was right instead of what it was expected of me. The price for making my own choices is to live with the assumption that I’ve been a disappointment to my parents. Most of the time I shrug it off and don’t really concern myself with it. After all, it is my life and I am the only one that needs to be happy with it. But instead of continuing to live with the secret assumption that I am a disappointment because I didn’t do what they expected me to, I decided to ask instead. During a very serious conversation with my mom, I asked,

“Mom, are you disappointed in me? That I’ve always gone about things and my life in my own way?”
“No,” She replies, with surprise in her voice, “No, I am not.”

Nothing sours your enthusiasm for what is possible than when you gave it your all and it just doesn’t work out. A failed marriage will make one re-evaluate everything ever though about love, partnership and happily ever after. The disillusionment in love is topped off with three years of New York City dating escapades that seem to be created by the show runners for “Sex and the City.” Any fair maiden’s heart would feel the Arctic chill by now. Being the pragmatic, highly logical and reasonable being that I am, I’ve long shelved my fairytale delusions to well…just that…. illusions. I’ve long ceased to subscribe to happily ever after, only good for now. Cynical yet practical. I know. Yet, as I’ve become determined in rewriting history and reprogramming what is possible, I decided to reclaim the fairy tale and tailor fit it to me.

I decided that I want to believe.

Armed with a very good, indulgent, darling girlfriend (they give you courage), we went shopping for a wedding dress (not to buy mind you). I needed to see myself costumed in the part I thought was no longer possible. I needed to see my reflection in the full-length mirror of the bridal salon and believe love and partnership can be had. I needed to put on the dress and see myself playing the part to believe the play even exists. I re-wrote the script. Instead of being a woman who has loved, lost, and is too commonsensical to love again, I am a woman who can still have the most incandescent love possible (in a wiser way of course). I needed to see a version of myself where I am not scared to surrender to it, where I am not so cynical and doubt it away, where I am not so ultra rational as to reason all the magic out of it. I needed to see a scenario where I’ve allowed for the impossible to be possible so I can believe there is a right guy with a brave heart to love me, the stamina to keep up with me, and the confidence to let me be me.

Related Posts:
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Your Wish is My Command
Forgive Yourself
A Mouth Full of Questions

*The Flinch by Julien Smith and The Tower by Chris Guillebeau are worth checking out.

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Murizio Cattelan’s ALL at the Guggenheim is one of the best exhibits I’ve seen all year. I’ve experienced the gut wrenching melancholic beauty of Alexander McQueen’s Savage Beauty, the classic fearless definitive retrospective of Willem de [...]]]>

Murizio Cattelan’s ALL at the Guggenheim is one of the best exhibits I’ve seen all year. I’ve experienced the gut wrenching melancholic beauty of Alexander McQueen’s Savage Beauty, the classic fearless definitive retrospective of Willem de Kooning, but it is Cattelan’s ALL that made me smile from the inside.

First, lets start with the big question, what is art? Do you subscribe to Warhol’s definition, “art is what [we] can get away with”? This could be too big and complicated concept and we will just end up in a semantics debate. Okay, maybe we should try a different approach. What is the function of art and can it change the world?

I saw ALL on opening weekend, without reading a single review or knowing what awaited me inside the Guggenheim. I walked in: initial impression, THIS IS AMAZING! Then I proceeded up the ramp for the curatorial statement. Thought: Oh YEAH! Cattelan is a GENIUS! The subsequent hour I spend with the exhibit did nothing to sway me from my initial impression. Ironically, I really didn’t need to spend an hour viewing the exhibit. I understood what Cattelan has so audaciously put forth from the first view that everything else is just frosting on top.

The art world likes to debate if Cattelan is really an artist, some calls him a prankster, some dismisses him all together, yet he is exhibited in our most respected institutions and fairs. Cattelan is a conceptual artist. His idea is the essence of his art, the presentation and execution is only ever in addition to. Through an irreverent sense of humor, our society’s most sacred notions are challenged and begged to be re-contextualized.

For the retrospective, Cattelan strung together 128 pieces of his work into a giant mobile of sorts and suspended it in the center of the Guggenheim, dangling down 6 stories from above, in effect, taking over the museum by occupying the core of it. The retrospective is titled ALL, rather fittingly, given that that is exactly what a retrospective is.

I love the exhibit for the following reasons:
1. The audacious presentation. Cattelan chose to cluster all of his work together in a giant “cluster-fuck,” declaring, in a not so subtle statement, that art cannot be viewed without context. Cattelan appears to be saying, “You want to see what I’ve made in my entire career? Well here it is, in one giant lump sum!”

We whip ourselves into a frenzy in setting the first criteria for GREAT ART: its timelessness, appreciated and loved despite all circumstances. Really? First of all, we never, repeat, never, view any art without some sort of context.

Cattelan’s work is satirical and ironic. The work is referential to politics, religion, contemporary art or current social issues. To view the work in a pure abstract way in a linear, standardized, retrospective fashion, such as the de Kooning show, would have been unfaithful and disingenuous.

In this giant mobile / cluster-fuck / you-can-have-it-all way, Cattelan challenges the notion of a retrospective and simultaneously creates a new piece out of his ouver. Make no mistake, Cattelan showed us a new piece by recycling and reusing everything he’s created in his career.

2. The title, ALL. I think that is rather succinct and perfect. Enough said.

3. Cattelan announces his retirement from the art world with the opening of the retrospective. Major career retrospectives are considered to be the pinnacle of any artist’s career, it is the cherry on top, yet it also invariably implies that all forth coming work will be less than what has come before it. Once you’ve reached the top of the arc, there is only one way to go. The retrospective ends up being a premature eulogy. To combine his retirement alongside with ALL, Cattelan frees himself from the scrutiny of the art world and ends his career with a bang!

To make ALL even more interesting, the attendance for the show is at an all time high, contrasted against the disdain of critics for it both in print and online.

Cattelan has just poked the art world in the eye, using one of the most highly respected institutions as his instrument, and challenges some of our sacred notions the art world hold so near and dear.

How can you not love Cattelan and his ALL?

Art should challenge and Cattelan did just that. Sometimes it takes a prankster to show us the light.

Related Posts:
Savage Beauty – Mute the Thinking Mind
Your life is a de Kooning
Misconception of Life as an Artist
The Artist is Present, Part 3

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I fell down the rabbit hole. Down, down, down, deep in the quagmire of that existential question, “what does it all mean. “

I’ve consistently forsaken “safe” for adventure. I’ve always chosen the road less traveled. I’ve risked everything to live my life on my terms. I’ve aimed for a life [...]]]>

I fell down the rabbit hole. Down, down, down, deep in the quagmire of that existential question, “what does it all mean. “

On a walk, I ran into my dear friend, Colin Huggins (aka The Crazy Piano Man), playing his baby grand piano in Washington Square Park. I looked at Colin and his street performer life style , playing classical music in the middle of the park, day after day, because he wants to live on his own terms. Oh, yeah, okay, yes, I am not the only one striving for a life on my terms. I am not alone in this fight for a meaningful life. I love and respect Colin so much for his courage and it was a comforting sight to see him out there, in the cold, playing his piano.

Seeing someone else out there, still fighting the good fight, just seeing and knowing someone else is believing and striving…. it was encouraging.

She gently reminds me not to underestimate the kaleidoscope of experiences and memories that I’ve accumulated, that fill my insides, and make me shine. Sherry insists that it is worth more than the credit I give it.

John said having the daring to set forth on the path alone is already enough. To simply have the boldness, determination and spirit is enough, in itself. You’ve already achieved and won, says John.

In my twitter exchange with Umair Haque I came across his piece on how to define a well lived life and why we should strive for eudaimonia*. Apparently it was not just me who was taking stock and wondering what comes next, what it all means and if we’ve made the right choices. I found comfort in knowing these big questions are part of the collective unconscious, the undercurrent.

I got stuck in asking “when will it get easier?” and preoccupied with “arriving” that I forgot that I’ve already arrived. I am just at the starting point for the next set of adventures and I let it freak me out. I forgot, for a second, all that I’ve survived; I convinced myself that if I had not “made it” by now then I must have failed.

Oh, how silly I can be.

My favorite moment of perspective came from my darling ex who encouraged me to adopt Kurt Vonnegut’s Bokononism, “Live by the foma (harmless untruths) that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.” *insert belly laugh*

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