Hallucinations and Great Discoveries
Friday, 24 July 2009
I finally met up with Tyson Crosbie last week. He was generous with his time and in his inscription in my copy of Phoenix 21. We talked for about an hour, and I fully intended to follow up on my post a few weeks ago by asking him to answer the question: which comes first - point of view or negative space? That’s what I intended, but I’m about to hijack my own article.

During our exchange, over his iced tea and my triple-shot-iced latte, we discovered that Tyson and I have something else in common: recent personal archeological digs. Each of us has excavated our way through current life experiences and assumptions that not only informed who we were but drove our creative expression. Our issues were different; our journey looked very much the same. Tyson is working on this third series: Tempe 20.

Tyson talked about his point of view while creating and compiling the narratives for Phoenix 20 and 21. How the proverbial and creative lenses were tight and narrow – definitely a first person point of view feeling. He wondered how the resolution of the impetus for Phoenix 21 would affect the process of creating future works. Tyson contemplated the possibility that this next series may in fact look, sound, and feel very different. Of course, we got to this place in our conversation five minutes before I had to leave. I nearly screamed, “Me too!” but you know, I wanted to be cool, so I just said, “Yeah…I can relate.”

Phoenix is a desert, and lately, I’ve felt stranded out there among the cacti and brush with no idea what to do next. So I started to dig, and then dug some more, until I hit an assumption – an assumption upon which I had based a great many choices over the years. I wrote about it, took it to colleagues and friends, then wrote about it more. That kind of excavation can bring about hallucinations and great discoveries… and sometimes, they are strikingly similar. Navigating through this new landscape will forever change my world. Themes of silence, absence and loss often anchored in my work will resonate differently. My viewfinder is expanding; my point of view is shifting.
 
Looking at Tyson’s early cuts for Tempe 20, I wonder about his creative path. I wonder about mine. And, like Tyson, I wonder how the resolution of what is very present in my life today, will impact my work tomorrow.