The Mountain Speaks

City of Faith and the Ninth Fold

I don’t want to tell the truth about myself, I make art so I don’t have to.

You want to know my race, my country, my religion. You want the biography of the artist for context and categorization. You want to know my financial status, what school I didn’t go to, what trauma I have suffered. You want to know these separations, distinctions, but I make art to show I am human.

More or less than these conditions. Subject to and yet not defined by them. To be defined is to be confined, captured. By racism, imperialism, classism, sexism, fanaticism, every fucking ism of separation rooted in lies.

I don’t want to tell the truth about myself, I make art because I still must be honest.

Honest about my human condition. My subjectivity. My quest for the truth, to understand how my life became what it is. To know what projections and prejudice have influenced my journey. To know what is real beneath propaganda and exploitation. To be able to say, I have examined my life and myself, read the pages in the book of my lineage and in this telling, I have read the story of human kind and the history of the world.

I don’t want to tell the truth about myself, I make art because I want to tell the truth about everything.

I was standing in the center of the four corners monument in winter. I remember flag poles. I was there with my father and my brother. I was miserable as usual. I was utterly trapped in a hellishly abusive situation. Controlled into silence through violence, I had clear intentions. I would survive.

In the sheltered space of my mind, I carried on conversations, I experienced and observed, I existed. I made choices and took risks. I worked with what I had. I protected myself. I attempted to protect others. I struggled to speak, but even when I did, no one was listening.

But some thing was listening that day as I observed the condition. I didn’t have a label for it at that time. I just saw it. The theft and destruction of the land, the racism, the sexism, the children as property. And I felt it all. My pain and the reflection of my condition as the entire condition. The imprisonment of life itself. And I called out in my mind, feeling all of it, I called out looking at the mountain in the distance “When? When will I be free? When will everyone, everything, when will we all become free?”

And suddenly, like a shock wave, the answer came and nearly knocked me to the ground. The sensation is quite challenging to describe, but it was like a physical force. There was a voice that just began speaking without pause. I found it difficult to stay upright as if a great wind were blowing me down. I saw my vision go dark and feared passing out and drawing attention to myself. So, with all my focus I stayed conscious and searched for a place to hide. All the while the voice is still speaking and it is loud.

“Many people will die. These people will die,” the voice said, referring to the Diné people at the monument selling in the booths. I was terrified, I could feel what the voice was talking about, I could see it. I was afraid and sorrowful. I made it to the parking lot and found a space behind one of the booths that seemed out of view. I crouched down and allowed the vision to play out. I heard the voice and I saw images of what was being told.

I know that I don’t remember the entirety of what I experienced. I do remember quite a bit. Enough to know that in 2020 when the pandemic hit, it was exactly what I had seen that winter of 1991. It also told me that at that time I would move to Santa Fe, which is exactly what happened.

I didn’t believe in the vision. I didn’t know if it was real and I certainly didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t think about it all the time, but I also couldn’t escape it. I recognized things and I had a great fear for a future I was desperate to change.

So when I say that I am an artist investigating the nature of reality, you may have more appreciation of why. I have lived with visions since the beginning. I have experienced and observed, like a detective, taking notes, exploring hypothesis, testing systems and obtaining knowledge.

On most things, the jury was still out. It was out until 2020 when reality removed much doubt.