“My Art: A Statement” (2010)
Willful, waiting, yearning for it.
I’m lying on the precipice with an epiphany in sight,
Face-down in the dirt with my eyes just over the edge,
Paralyzed and wordless,
The motivation to frighten, to terrorize is blowing past my nostrils
Like a hot plume of ash from the pustules of the earth.
Something natural, something inevitable
Is welling up inside me.
I have suddenly found envy in an earthquake’s ability to seize attention unto itself,
Or a blackout’s ability to fling anyone into a panic.
The fear of death is the ultimate fear,
An instinctive aversion that aggressively commands human physiology in order to ensure survival.
Yet, few know this fear in suburban society;
Instead, there is a fear of the dead, a fear of the presence of death.
I need to harness this,
To horrify,
To awaken,
To allow people to come to terms with their mortality,
Not through the cross, the bread, or the wine,
Not through the fear of God,
But through the discomfort inherent in the company of corpses, isolation, and the unknown.
To inspire a newfound value in life,
And to reinstate a respect for the dead.
This is my mission.
Perhaps it is ambitious,
But isn’t life about ambition?
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