I’ve never been a huge fan of making new year resolutions. I do love seeing the determination of others to achieve things, and really feel joy for them when they check items off their lists. I also sympathize with those that get to the end of the socially agreed-upon time cycle, and realize their goals were not met. Personally, I don’t like bundling personal objectives into cyclical events like these.
We can talk about the nature of time, and whether it’s a flat plate, or a string on a tampon, or whatever wild metaphor folks prefer. But that’s not what this article is about; today I want to focus on what it means to work with intention, and how that can reflect in one’s art, writing, etc, especially when coupled with self imposed time constraints.
CW: Lots and lots of body suspension stuff
Back when I started out with body suspension, I had no goals, or any idea of where I might go with it. It was in entirety a hobby, and a method of stress release. It was a recreational outlet, that I shared with a group of like minded individuals. We would pull against each other in shady bars in Brooklyn, like a tug of war (called a flesh pull), and swing around from trees in our friends’ backyards, or from beams in warehouses. Even our shows were a visceral, borderline maniacal release of energy. “We hurt ourselves for your entertainment,” as my friend and mentor used to say.
I guess the intention behind it was simply to cut loose, and chase some internal demons away. We didn’t give two shits about what anybody outside of our circle had to say about us, and we were, in many senses, free. But as is the case with most obsessive creatives, eventually this approach loses its appeal, and the things we love to do become more than just fun outlets. The press of time begins to kick in, and we feel the need to bring our wilder ideas into existence.
Most folks who get really deep into the practice of suspending others from hooks, have found a deep meaning in it. Sometimes it’s personal - I have seen people resolve emotional traumas, find immense zen, and even get clean off of hard drugs thanks to suspension. Other times it’s a social thing; the sense of community with this medium is very strong, and understandably so. Most folks who have not done suspension have no fucking idea why we would do this at all, while those who have share an unspoken truth.
The thing all of us factilitators have in common however, is a hard to explain willingness to share the experience with others. It’s a way of giving back. My very first clear establishment of any personal intentions with suspension were back in the late aughts (circa ‘07), after I got to fully facilitate the suspension experience for some individuals. They privately approached me afterwards, to express their genuine gratitude. It blew my fucking mind; I had never before felt this level of appreciativeness from strangers for anything I had done in my life.
My mentor’s death in 2011 left a long wake of trauma and sorrow behind. He was a prominent figure in multiple communities. His passing also forced many of us to do some very heavy soul searching, which led to a great many of us finding our new path with the medium. This is where I gained a sense of urgency with suspension for the first time, mostly kickstarted with this stark reminder of the fragility of our lives.
I found myself suddenly concentrating all of my creative ideas in one place, exploring the possibilities both technically, and from a narrative-building perspective with suspension. While suspension had already been a modus of catharsis and euphoria for years at this point, suddenly it became the thing that was pulling me out of an intense period of mourning, depression, and anxiety. The ability to create scenes, and discover the potential to tell stories (both personal and not) was like breathing oxygen for the first time again. In a way, this insanely niche medium had become my medicine.
At this point I had been exposed to a great number of advanced body suspension practitioners and artists, and began connecting some dots in my head with how I wanted to execute and present my own ideas. I was very ambitious. I realized rapidly how hard one can burn out not just themselves, but their relationships with others when trying to force creative flow into hard deadlines. My first big lesson was hosting my first ever large scale suspension event in 2015, in NYC; Skin:NYC v1. Check out the video above.
Organizing an event this size is not a massive headache with most regular events; at least not for those of us that have worked in production for some time now. I am confident in my ability to both design and curate installations, as well as in managing people in a way that sets them up to succeed at what they’re doing. What makes something like this entirely unreasonably challenging, is when you bundle the logistics of facilitating safe suspensions along with the unpredictable nature of the medium. Sometimes people can’t go through with a suspension. Sometimes they bleed a lot. Sometimes they are mentally unprepared. Sometimes practitioners make mistakes in piercing and/or rigging. There are so many aspects to the experience that make the outcome incalculable.
The big fuck you with an intense medium like this, is the same big fuck you that comes with any creative medium. When you are working with time constraints, you are not able to take your time and float in creative voids, gathering the inspiration, motivation, or the feeling you need to get in your flow. And so you end up in a situation where you have to sacrifice something. Fuck you, payment is due.
By prioritizing the timeline, and not the quality, you find yourself sacrificing your relationship with the medium. And if you cut the quality so you can meet the deadline, then you have sacrificed something just as important. I call this falling out of love with your art. To be clear, I am not talking about working under deadline for a client or job; this is specifically about working within your own, self imposed parameters.
As the years have gone by, I have gotten better and better at not rushing my work. It shows in the progression of my work from 2011 to today. The path has not been easy; it has in fact, been highly turbulent. The medium is inherently very extreme on all levels, so it tracks that the ups and downs are very high and very low when they hit.
There are plenty of installations I’ve created that I loath deeply, and will probably never share with anybody. There are a few that I have colossally fucked up beyond salvaging, and abandoned. I am deeply resentful to myself about these, not because I messed up, but because my art demands so much from the primary subject: a living, breathing human being. I feel like I let them down, and even if they tell me they don’t feel that way, I can’t just turn it off. If you want to message me to say “don’t be hard on yourself,” you can stop right the fuck there, I’m not looking for your sympathy or encouragement. Every true artist knows what I’m talking about when it comes to failure. We all have our own ways of working through our disappointments.
And there are plenty of installations that I’ve created that I love, and draw inspiration and confidence from regularly. Most importantly, there are humans that I have worked with that I am constantly dying to work with again. It’s not just their gratitude at the end of the experiences (which still, to this day is a big reason why I love the medium), but also my gratitude for them allowing me into their vulnerability, so that I may create art with their bodies and minds.
Why would I rush something so personal, and so powerful? When you set an intention, it should work towards the goal, not towards a specific schedule. Some shit just takes forever if you want to do it right.
The irony in all of this is that I am borderline obsessive when it comes to scheduling. I have calendars and notes for everything, and I like to keep things on track. I enjoy pre-planning, managing expectations, and executing a plan. I measure twice and cut once. When a project is done, it’s clear as crystal; no finishing touches necessary. The trick is to not rush the creative process itself, and the only way to do that is to make sure everything around it is setup to not encroach on creative time.
My work with suspension deals with some very chaotic elements that I am weaving and binding into an orderly spell. The chaos is beautiful: I thread and run floppy soft rope through dozens of points, its abrasiveness burning warmth into my fingertips and forearms, as I lose myself in tangles of loose geometries. A clear picture projected on the walls of my consciousness, I flow with pure intention towards making it a reality, my emotional and spiritual states unquestioned, my body a mechanical extension of the fluid and formless thought process that is driving it. I lace this intricate environment for my muse, intoxicated with the anticipation of the moment when this entropy I am constructing becomes one with their body and mind. We connect on the highest frequencies, mind to mind, and then we connect on the most intimate levels via proxies; skin to steel to rope to skin again. As I hoist this unity against gravity, the chemical release elevates their mind above this plane. In tension, my intentions reach completion: a living, breathing aesthetic releasing all tension. My resolutions are complete.
I have only reached this level of clarity with my work because I have accepted the failures inherent in rushing art. My resolutions don’t start with a new year, they start if and when the idea lands in my mind, and I take my time establishing my intentions.
What do your resolutions look like? How do you approach your time spent in your work? How often do you step away to take a breath?
Non suspension art! Today is the first drop as part of my collaboration with the fractal master Widmer Luiz, titled “FRACTALSxCODE.” I’m so excited for these, and it’s a big step towards more of the generative art I’ve been so keen on immersing myself in. Check out the first drop here.
And don’t forget to spread the word about my podcast either. Help us boost artists in the space with some tweets, as big names continue to dominate algorithmic visibility.