Below is basically the letter I wrote for my brother in law, a great kid, still in High School who really inspired me this last week by his desire to give gifts for his family, earning and spending his own money to get gifts, real gifts, for his family, and his new brothers in law.
A little about this gift…
It is a portion of a letter tray, used for holding type, I love trying to figure out how to design and create in small spaces and it allows for there to be more than one thing being said at a time…like our lives, but we are also beyond compartmentalizing ourselves.
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Your initials, mine too, and I was glad to share the few letters I had to make you a gift.
The first little jar has the phrenology head you like, sorry I don’t have a spare one I can part with right now, but if I did, you would have it. But the image is powerful to me because it is a great example of humanity’s attempts to understand ourselves, our behaviors and our souls. It is a scientific attempt but it ultimately fails. The jar contains withered grass and a pinch of dust; both from a graveyard, reminders of our mortality and that there is a terminal limit on searching for self knowledge.
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You are one of the few people I talk with who both enjoys political discussion and also sees limits to our system the way it is. I did a piece called “Neither Ballots NOR Bullets,” you saw it and this little piece is based upon it. Christianity and the Bible are above politics though they have political relevance, Jesus didn’t come to setup a political system or support a political party. The bullet I found in a parking lot and the Rockefeller campaign “pin” is from either his 1960, 64 or 68 presidential bid and it is the kind of “pin” that you would fold the back over the top of your shirt pocket to clasp it. I had Goldwater too, but thought you’d appreciate the Rockefeller pin more; money, moderate social stances, fiscally sounds, etc.
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Key holes to me represent mystery, we don’t know everything, nor can we…it’s not wrong to ask questions as long as you can handle not everything has an answer or more accurately we may not understand the answer.
“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.”
Light bulb, because you are very bright, as in, intelligent, but the bulb also must be connected to the source to shed light to others. We are at our best when connected to the source, and we also, despite our understanding and intelligence must also be ok being next to mystery.
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Family Curse Jar
You are the first to receive or even see this piece (besides my close confidant, your sister). I am working on a new piece that is about curses, and family curses, but it isn’t about our immediate or even distant ancestors, it is about Adam and Eve and their fall and the curse we all bear now. It is based upon hoo doo (African American folk religion/magic) of the mojo bags and conjure men and women) So the jar collects symbols of the curses…cursed earth, from the graveyard, snake skin, tears/sweat from child labor and hard work, thorns and thistles from a ground no longer easy to work, a “nation bag,” used by women in Memphis to allure and dominate men, symbol of Eve’s struggle and fig leaf stamps, exiled from the garden in our nakedness…
