Meander 2: Beyond Art-Making
No river can run in a straight line longer than ten times its width, even in a flat valley. If the river is fifty feet wide, it will stray from its course in five hundred feet or less. This is due to shifting sediment accumulation along the river's path, causing variable current speeds. When the currents become strong enough to eat into the banks in some areas, the river begins to meander.
Meander No. 2: Beyond Art-Making
After successfully making art with my OHO friends for about five years, the sediments quickly began to accumulate and suddenly pushed us in different directions. We all decided that it was time for something new. But, why? The breakup of OHO has been studied by art theorists and students, but I’d like to cite Slovenian art historian and friend Tomaž Brejc’s take on it . He wrote in the catalog of our 1978 exhibit:
"Why did the OHO participants cease to exhibit when they were probably at the threshold of becoming truly known, at the threshold of their greatest success? Simply for the fact that they were honest people, because their creativity was always linked with their life, and their most personal decisions were always consistent and complete, because they never belonged to the art 'system' dictated by the art market and exhibition politics of the late 1960s. When they experienced a call to dedicate themselves to a different work, they did so resolutely and immediately."
Tomaž beautifully captured what was happening to each of us. Specifically, my friends and I became interested in other forms of creativity. Along with many in the turbulent 1960s, we sensed that the world was changing, and what was once simply accepted could no longer be allowed to persist. I saw profound change ahead, but lacked any knowledge at that time to act on it. So I started with a question: “Could we re-invent human culture without destroying nature or diminishing one another?”
The question seemed to transcend the art opportunities available to me. And to grapple with a question of such obvious magnitude, I needed to give myself the space to reassess the artistic path I was on. With little to lose, I traveled to see what others were doing when faced with similar questions. I stumbled (it's a long story for another time) on the spiritual community of Findhorn in Scotland, where I stayed for 16 months. Here was a community with ideas that were the complete opposite of my experience in socialist/communist Yugoslavia: instead of listening to and obeying our leaders, we at Findhorn were asked to go ’inward’ to look for answers. This resonated with my idea that I needed to take stock on a personal level with the changes occurring around me. But we didn’t stop with inward assessments. We collaborated with nature. We strived to live simply, to reduce waste, and to live in harmony with the land—all sound principles for the future.
In fact, I was primed for the simple life Findhorn suggested. Growing up in Slovenia, I was poor, certainly by modern standards. The whole country was recuperating from the war, and things we now take for granted were simply unavailable. For example, we had to turn off our lights because electric power was scarce. Dining out was reserved for exceptional occasions only. But my life was not defined by lack, or wanting. I remember my early years fondly, filled with just enough material goods, as well as cultural ones: violin lessons, art classes, weekend outings, daily shopping at the farmers market, walkable and safe streets, access to the theater and symphony hall.
In Slovenia, we were forced into a simple life. In Findhorn, we chose it.
The first image of Earth from the Moon had a profound impact on me. We looked so small and vulnerable floating out there.
During this time of great change, my dreams were a mechanism that helped me process the debris of my quickly changing life. Indeed, because dreams offer us a chance to process such debris, most of them are forgettable. But once in a while, there is a big, once-in-a-decade dream. One of these visited me on New Year's night in 1971— at Findhorn.
Looking down on the earth from space, I saw a spring of crystal clear, cold water gushing from the North Pole, beginning to spread slowly over the entire planet. Suddenly I was in a boardroom in New York City with a group of stern men who looked like they stepped out of a Dutch 18th-century painting, complete with black robes and tall hats. They discussed the need to build dams and levees to ensure that the spreading water wouldn't interfere with their lives. They were determined to keep the waves from their shores.
Just as suddenly as I found myself in this severe boardroom with these stern men, I now found myself on the Pacific coast. The response there was the complete opposite. The prevailing attitude was: "The waves are coming, let's work with them and move forward." People of all ages and cultures came out of their houses with surfboards, kayaks, and small boats. With great joy, they jumped into the rising Pacific waves. For these people, the waves were a sort of baptism, an initiation. They saw it as an opportunity to 'surf' new ideas and create a truly great society. The mantra there was simple: waste less, turn to voluntary simplicity, and build resilient communities.
My dream foretold of ice caps melting and the refusal to acknowledge our role in bringing about climate catastrophe. But it also teased the possibility of doing new and creative things. It gifted me a lens through which I might interpret news, or a way to examine the ongoing conflict between economic and environmental vitality.
And today, we are at a crossroads. I believe that the path to a successful future calls for similar, voluntary change. We, the people, need to take the time to understand what is happening to our society and willingly adjust our lives appropriately. At the bottom of this crisis is our human culture, how we use power to control and bend other people and things to our purposes. In the face of this truth, I was once again forced to ponder a question for a better way forward: How might we apply the practice of collaboration that I began exploring in those early years with OHO to people and our communities? Indeed, to our world?
I wrestled with this idea at Findhorn and, perhaps spurred on by my great dream, I made my way to the Pacific Coast, ready to surf new waves. There, my wife Kathi and I started a family. My early years on the West Coast brought many new lessons, which led to the accumulation of more sediments, and once again, the river of my life began to meander to places unforeseen.
Meander No. 3 will focus on my first impressions coming to this country and the meanders that led to bringing my artist’s way of thinking into communities.