Contemplation.

The Forward to a book.

Digital Camera

Contemplation.

All experience is subjective. There is no beginning or end to a work we have witnessed a shift in these concepts. One drifts into an existence that becomes an unremitting commitment to the emancipation of the word. When I gather my thoughts to write on what ails us I am taken back on a journey. It is 1968 the Beatles are in Rishikesh, India, learning Transcendental Meditation. I am in Paris playing their music; ‘Back in the USSR’. I am dreaming of how I can be like my heroes; Che Guevara, Angela Davis and Bobby Searle; heroes that would stay with me and frame much of my life in the social movements. Everything has changed now. The old social movements have gone. Today, the Revolution is put down; those movements have died along with the utopian notions of happiness, blissfulness and togetherness.  Today, the factories are bigger; the workers have increased their technological know-how; the products are more sophisticated and the lifestyle more salubrious. Today, we are all encouraged to be physically enterprising while being more politically subdued. But today, many are no better off than they were a hundred years ago. There are new forms of bondage giving rise to new cries for freedom.  Yet now, freedom is a complex order of diversity rather than a dialectics. It spans utilitarianism and the natural systems; but ‘natural’ means something different too.  Today, ‘natural’ is an intricate structure where carbohydrates are replacing hydrocarbons and water is no longer delineated by the cool tranquillity of a flowing stream, but an item on a chemical table marked H20. The biodiversity is being replaced by monocultures while manufactured fertilizers are degrading the nutrients in the soil. The Green Revolution is hailed a success, but higher food yields have not eliminated the world’s hunger.  Nor has the heavy consumption in the west made us content.  There is still social disquiet, disarray and political protest, there are still wars, murders, rapes and voyeurs, but they appear to have little impact and we, the socially mindful, caring, spiritual beings are asking; are we losing the battle for our survival? I turn to my art for solace. (November 2001).