Multiplicity

by Jason Lord

Exhibition: April 9 - 13, 2024

Reception: Friday, April 12th, 6-8p

                      i have been 

casting a spell of attention 

    and the spell is for you 

                    i have been 

casting a spell and weaving a wave 

    and the wave spell is for you and ruth asawa 

                  i have been

casting weaving walking the shimmering bamboo for gilles deleuze and you

                i have been

walking casting weaving for you and ruth and gilles and singing a wordless song of opening 

   and the song is for all of you and shuhada’ sadaqat 

              i have been

singing a spellsong and walkweaving a dream for you and ruth and gilles and shuhada’ and paolo freire          

            i have been

casting weaving walking singing dreaming whispering a tale of love for refaat alareer

    and a tale of love for you too 

          i have been

dreamweaving for bell hooks and songwalking for thich nhat hanh 

    and for you, me, us 

        i have been

woodsawing and smokedrawing

      i have been

heartbreaking and fistshaking

   i have been 

signholding, worldunfolding

avant-garde, trying too hard

loving the world

and you

_________________

a tinkling chime,

mundane, sublime,

frozen in time;

a repetition exhibition;

this simple phrase:

just five days

for you

4/9-4/13

More About Jason

Through my experimental, interdisciplinary, and prolific art practice, I learn about the world.  The trinity of my practice comprises inquiry, presence, and change.  I grew up in a working class, Catholic family in New England, where religion taught me about ritual, class taught me resourcefulness, and queerness taught me to improvise. I draw from 25 years of experience as a multidisciplinary artist-educator to accept that the question is more important than the answer; in the Zen Buddhist tradition, “not knowing is the most intimate.” I pull from an ever-widening toolbox to engage in material, relational, and philosophical explorations most often rooted in the question of what it means to be human. The tools I’ve been practicing with lately are tools of installation, drawing, assemblage, sculpture, video, and my own body moving in an urban landscape. I write a new artist statement every day, and this one was written on March 19th, 2024.