nature loads the GUN - nurture pulls the TRIGGER

How can it be that a person born and bred from generations of alcoholics, arrives in this life as a tiny baby with the appropriate genetic code clutched in its fist, and moves through a lifespan never showing signs of addiction?

Biology has a strong hand.

Society has a strong hand too.

So it's no longer Nature vs. Nurture.

There's no arguement.

It's a handshake- with two sometime compatriots loading and firing a gun on a battlefield of evolution.

"It's good to see you", or perhaps, "I told you to stay away from me- now give me the gun"

Turns out there is a folding point, a weak spot in the fabric.
A trauma or event or series of events - often in early adolescence -

trigger the addict marker in the DNA....

and the rest uncoils.

the "I", the "We"

There is no Starling "I".

The beauty of the watery sweep and inky line exists because of mindlessness.

To let ones self relax into the drift.

http://www.vnn.dk/default.asp?lan=UK&mnu=23

But which bird says?

Which bird moves slightly to the left or leans into the wind to move the million towards that wild design?

The psychologists say that in mobs or riots, the crowds that run amok are steered by people deep inside the group.

The ones who cannot see.

http://www.dailymail.co.uknewsarticle-515575sky-turns-black-thousands-starlings-flock-gretna-green.html/

So to those that are invested in the "flocking" theories for corporate workplace structures- be careful.

Individualistic vs. Collectivism.
The fraternal twins of different cultures.

One culture says- the good of the few.
The other- the good of the many.
The revolution of evolution.

But the Starling mind is not Collectivistic.
(Although the corporate encampments would like you to think it so. )
No creativity, no rebellion, no identity.
The Starling does not question.

Surrender.

Accept.

We are the We.

spiral, magnet, tree: THE CRAVING

The surge and the urge.
Addiction.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/11/061121-giant-magnet.html

The MRI- the miracle machine that peeps inside the mind, and shows the addict brain pulse with pleasure just seeing a picture of a frosty beer, a crack pipe, the oxycontin tablet.

While the normal mind shows a stimulating sign when looking at a baby, a humming bird, a family photo.

http://www.magnetism.com/magblogarchives/2006/03/magnetism_shapes_dna_in_space.html
And DNA too!
The twists of genetic material that scribe the genes of a schizophrenic, a homosexual, and an alcoholic.
The mouth goes moist simply driving past the billboard where the woman in black velvet sips the drink or hold the bottle.

http://www.arborsmith.com/treecircus.html
And the tree!

The family tree- with little christmas lights for every relative afflicted with addiction or bi-polar or.....suicide at last.

Put on those boots.
Lace them tight and strive to be the one that lives to old age, and dies in ones bed sober.
You are not alone.
You will make it.

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2006/11/history-of-addiction.html

http://www.hbo.com/addiction/

http://creativerecovery.artbabyart.net/kimpark/artwork.htm

http://m3.alexweidmann.com/piles/?s=pancakejunkie

the beauty of the Mark, the intention or ambivalence of the Maker

Robert Smithson 1970 diary page

http://www.earthworks.org/links.html

william anatasi subway drawings

http://www.subwayseismo.com/about/

Often ( and for me as an artist this is not always a good thing) on the way to creating a new piece I will see a scrape on a wall, an inadverdent mark on a piece of tin or plastic, or the claw scrape of a wild animal on a tree and say to myself-

forget it! forget art!

you will never make a mark as provocative or beautiful.

parking lot markings
http://gscottage.blogspot.com/2007/08/pavement-markings-for-band-practice.html



artist Cy Twombly

http://www.menil.org/twombly.html


physicist Clint Sprott

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/

the sudden light, the shock, the rising

Mr. Colin Evans levitates in the late 1930's in an English church.

Spectacular photographs- look at the faces and gestures of the people in the audience.

These photographs are often identified as infrared, but that was not a process available during this time.

The photo uses a flash, in darkeness.

The people are shocked by the light- the incident they have been waiting for-the physicality of suprise.

Where are you going? And who are your guides?

This is one of the most beautiful and provocative photographs I know.

Taken in France in perhaps the 1930's, a psychic is blindfolded and led to a crime scene.

The image is like a dream- the three portly men in suits, two holding hands, the leader and the one led, into a landscape of the dark and dreadful.

Ted Serios' thought-o-photographs

Ted Serios was a regular guy, an alcoholic, a doorman at a local Chicago hotel.

He claimed to be able to create photographs on Polaroid film using his thoughts.

His claims were heard and then supported by psychiatrist Jule Eisenbud.

There were hundreds of strange gatherings that lasted all night.
Eisenbud would ply Ted Serios with liquor.
Sometimes physical acts of violence to property would ensue.
People invited to watch the process would find themselves harrangued.

But inevitably, several photgraphs would come out of the nights process, evidently made by Serios' thoughts, his grimaces towards the camera, and his gestures towards the lense with a small tube he called his Gizmo.
The Gizmo was shown to all as an empty metal tube.





These events came on the distant heels of a turn-of-the-century phenomenon known as the Spiritualist movement:
Ghosts, visits from the dead, automatic writing, ectoplasmic photography, knocking and tapping messages from Beyond.

The gap in those 40 or so years was capped by Ted Serios' thought photography.
Although much of the evidence that came out of the Spiritualist movement was proven to be fabrications, and there were many of the same claims toward Mr. Serios' work-
there has never been a succesful disprovement of the claims and the result of his work.
What is the story here?