Boundaries and Intersections

I work with a lot of artists. In fact, some days I remember that I am an artist too. Not just the days that I am struggling to make a sequence beautiful as well as functional, but also the days I arrange my garden, or redecorate my living room. Sometimes, I am reminded that I made bonafide art, in the form or ceramics and textiles, and it blows my mind. It’s so different from the life I currently lead. Or so I thought… I was talking to one of the artists I work with, a very close friend Guillermo Gomez Pena, we were discussing the overlaps between performance art and Yin Yoga. Guillermo and I often have very interesting conversations ranging from airport security to race to gender politics, but what was different about this conversation was that it overlapped a number of topics: love, borders, spirit, faith, endurance, strength. Our words and verbal images danced around the edge of discomfort and the explosion of intuitive knowing. It is no mystery that many performance artists are Buddhist. You can read about Maria Abramovic’s and a number of other artists personal feelings about faith and spirit and how it moves their work, enabling a commitment that they would not be able to find with just their own shear will. What we were dissecting was the idea that at takes the performer as well as the audience to the edge and it is through the breath that you are allowed to stay there, suspended until the next movement brings you back. We dissected the need for humanity to push boundaries in order to make the world a more inclusive space. We explored the ache that we all have to explore the raw edge of human physical being and what each of us explores at that edge. It was not the first conversation of this type, nor will it be the last, but it has given me a moment to think about my directions and where my heart feels most full. I am drawn to art that explores the edge of humanity, yoga that explores the edge of physicality, theory that explodes paradigms around race and equity. While I frequently exist at the borders or in the margins, I am beginning to envision that middle ground, where lots of border crossers can rest comfortably and recharge their souls.

What is your boundary, where do you cross?