I am exciting to be taking part in this group installation.  There is always a gap between what I visualize a project to look like and how it comes out, but this is even more exciting because it is such a grand scale, other artists with great visions and talents, and hearing their ideas but waiting to see it take shape and come together and how they interact.  The gallery space is being prepped and it looks awesome.  It has it’s own look and I am already amazed.

Below is an image developed for a stencil I made for one of my contributions, excited again to see how things come together and to move away from how I have done things before, open up for input while a project is in process and just have a great time laughing and working and moving pianos and hanging ropes and drawing with ash.  And that was just day one for me! 

In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down or cut him
til he cried out in his anger and his shame
I am leaving, I am leaving, but the fighter still remains
Yes he still remains

The Simon & Garfunkel song, “The Boxer” always reminds me of a good friend of mine.  In every verse there is memory of him or his story.  We were together in Sept ‘01, watching the first live broadcast of SNL after the 9/11 attacks when Paul Simon sang this song after Giuliani’s opening monologue.  It seemed fitting then of the resolve during troubled times for NYC and as I reflect on my dear friend and his past and recent struggles in this troubled economy I find myself seeing him as that unwavering, hard headed boxer, being pushed by cold winds and struck by heavy blows and still standing and still remaining.

I doubt he feels heroic.  Most likely he only feels tragically “trapped.” All he can do is stand and take it, what else is there?  And certainly part of that is true.  Often in life we feel like we are fighters, not winners really, just fighters.  We are just too thick to quit, so we fight.  Life pushes us into a corner and the only way out it seems is to keep at it, but our arms get heavy, our vision weak and there is nothing to do but just take it until you get that second wind, until you find that strength or until you hear the bell sound.

And I get that, and realize the frustration of just reminding yourself of platitudes, but the biggest part of me, the truest part of me has to remember we aren’t called fighters or even winners, but MORE than winners, by a God who took on the blackest, darkest hour and heard the count to ten and in an incredible reversal, to which there is no earthly parallel, He rose and conquered our worst enemies, our very fears and made a way for His grace to reach us where we even oppose ourselves.

There is no denial of our pain; of our trials, of our suffering, though we are often reluctant to call it that knowing as we do the harder life of others in this world.  But we do suffer and we do lose heart after we receive blow after blow.  And there comes a time when we all want to quit or do quit.  Or we can hang on in stubbornness and not know what else to do.

And I am not suggesting my friend has failed to remember the promises of our great Savior or that he is deficient in crying out to God, I just have felt the need to be there for him and acknowledge that he is not crazy, he is not whining, and his complaint is just and to also encourage him, to “put heart into” him, to “strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble” that he not lose heart. 

This piece was made for him, just trying to show in a tangible way the prayers and thoughts that have been with him.

There is no solution presented in it, just a heartfelt acknowledgement of suffering and stubbornness and of the wounds we carry with us.