ARTISTS STATEMENT

Knowing how to sit in silence, alone with oneself is a gift. Even then, head racing, heart pounding, all I can hear are the stories I make up inside.

When first moving to New York City, the Wyomingites said:

“I could never live there. It’s too noisy, too crowded.”

New Yorkers said “That’s where you’re from? Nothing there; too quiet.”

My heart homes: the wild lands of Manhattan, New York and Lander, Wyoming. Moving within and living alongside them, in respect and love. In each following the same rules in a different wilderness. Both are ruled by a cacophony of silence and a flatline horizon of noise. Crowded in different ways. The sense of place in the raging silences that is supposed to have been found in these places called home, have never been found anywhere. Not in the mountains, not under the diamond stare of the Milky Way. Not walking the streets of Manhattan, like Walt Whitman told me to. The sense of belonging has never come with another person. No matter how much I love you. No matter who you are to me. There is a pressure embedded in these bones that I should be doing more, more, more to make more of this moment. To make more of this moment with you. Never have I called myself an artist. The words have to be pushed through my teeth when someone asks. Standing alone with a hot spotlight burning a hole in the stage is the moment in space that so many come alive with their knowing of belonging. Maybe that’s the closest I’ve come. Even then, the sense of belonging in being; simply being, is eluding. And I have to do more, more, more because simply “being” isn’t enough. To find capacity in the silence, that is not honestly silence, to “be”. That’s why I’m here; uncomfortable sitting with myself. Uncomfortable with connecting with another person, not knowing what comes next. Living in the present of discomfort.

In the silence of being, the silence of belonging.

Come sit.