I'm beginning to despair and can see only two choices,
Either go crazy or turn holy.
Adelaide Prado.
We all need identity,
A title or postscript to which we frame the idea of our self alive in the world.
Mother,
Father,
Sister,
Brother,
Friend,
Teacher,
Electrician,
Doctor,
Lawyer,
Priest,
Farmer,
Forester,
Artist.
Yet to put on these labels,
Attach them to our self like the name tag at a conference is daunting sometimes.
It can feel limiting to bind oneself to just this label,
For the viewer is prone to read it and place us into the box of their understanding of what that label implies.
None of us want that,
Because none of us are that,
Limited to just one titling.
Will you ever bring a better gift to the world than the breathing respect that you carry wherever you go right now?
William Stafford.
I've never felt a claim on any label I wore at any time in my life.
I tried hard to wear them well.
I thought that in doing so,
The fulfilled I sought to feel for life would arrive.
I think I always knew somewhere deep down that any labeling would be ambiguous and arbitrary.
They change form,
They change and transform over time and therefore would be apt to fading with long exposure to the light.
My soul has always known better.
Labels are not meant to define but simply to hold space for recognition.
What can anyone give you greater than now,
Starting here,
Right in this room,
When you turn around?
William Stafford again.
Maybe all this is a diatribe,
Not worth the ink on paper.
Kind of too,
It is just a lot of doesn't matter mattering,
But labels run rampant in our lives nowadays and I wanted to explore their impact on my own life as I've let them limit and contain my sense of self.
I can't agree with some that have arisen in the lexicon of today.
Maybe I'm being ageist,
But the exploration of labels is something to take into consideration and therein,
Loose the trapped containment of whether we must use them as good social practice or not.
What you call yourself is what you are.
I'd like to see us live more closely to the heart of things,
To the soul of things and let some of the externally applied and maybe contrived labeling fall away.
In my history as an artist,
I've experienced a sense of existential dread around working outside of my medium of encaustic,
As if because I wrote the books,
I have to stay in that lane to be recognized or relevant.
I wore the label as if a tattoo on my forehead.
Time has turned me into something else and staying in that box's labeled content is impossible.
I discovered I can lose a lot,
Identity,
Recognition,
Footing even,
And get up from this falling to stand taller without the title stuck to my chest.
I realize I can still do all that without being all that.
Maybe again,
This is all mattering over things that don't matter because no one else struggles with this sense of identity or belonging or acceptance in a particularly defined space as I have in my life.
Maybe it isn't something we all go through to get to a deeper sense of self and a better awareness of being.
Maybe some are born firmer,
More stable in identity.
Maybe some know sooner over this spiraling of life.
Maybe I'm all alone,
But maybe I'm not.
I won't pin that label to my chest just yet.
If nothing else,
Take this time,
This talk,
This insight as an empowering one to know you're not alone,
Two,
To realize your gift is real,
And three,
That it has a tremendous place of value in the world.
Here you go,
Artist.
Create.
Learn.
Share.
Learn.
Create.
Create.
