"Call and Response: Billy Schulz / Stille Nacht"

"Grace means more than gifts.
In grace something is transcended, once and for all overcome.
Grace happens in spite of something; it happens
in spite of separateness and alienation."
Yrjo Kallinen

Billy and I have always cracked each other up.
That's just good livin'.

Some years ago, I lived right behind my brother, Billy. I had torn down a raggedy log barn and constructed a tidy little passive solar house on the resulting plateau. Billy lived within spitting distance (seriously, I tried) in his own single-wide trailer. Espaliered Pyracantha spilled luxuriously along the facade of tawny metal siding. We thought of it as Hyannisport South.
Come Christmas, Billy and I would trek over the Balsams to Asheville for our annual Holiday shopping spree. No list required: for Bill always knew exactly what he wanted to give. The Mall our destination of choice for the purchasing, whilst el almuerzo de la comida Mexicana remained our customary repast.
Good times.

Everything about this photograph is priceless,
including both the gazes and the furnishings.

One year, we were pushing the deadline - shopping on Christmas Eve. The mall was extremely crowded with last-minute shoppers hustling here and bustling there. Billy had it in his head that he needed a very specific book for his beloved niece, Carrie. It took some hunting. My every alternative suggestion fell on deaf ears. Finally, we located the book. He was so pleased and excited, crowing, "Carrie are love this!"
And we turned.
And we saw the line. It stretched away beyond cooking, circled around self-help, and yawned beyond mystery and into science fiction. I checked my watch, picked up my heart from the floor and we lumbered into the queue.

"Check"
William R. Schulz

After an interminable exchange of shuffle and stop, we made it to the checkout register. Tensions were rising. I'm not overly perceptive in certain social situations, but I'm sure I detected some jostling.
Now, Billy likes to write a check in payment for his purchases. It is a ritual. A way of belonging, and of being an adult (maybe you can relate to this). The clerk rang up the book and announced, "That will be fourteen dollars and eighty three cents." Billy looked assured and pulled out his check book. He stretched out his arms, cleared his throat, and with a flourish, put pen to paper.
He paused and looked at me with questioning eyes. See, Billy doesn't spell so good.
The crowd in line behind us sensed a potential delay and I started feeling like chum tossed off the side of a shark boat.

"Each Day a New Day"© video by tomschulzartist

Billy cut to the chase and asked me to, "Help me with this". Sweating, I asked if I couldn't just write the check. "No", he said. "I do it myself." OK cool Billy, but the dingoes what ate my baby is nipping at my heels, if you catch my drift. So I jumped in, "Four. Teen...." "May minute, Tom", said Billy. "Thas too fast."
I stopped. The buzzing in my head was silenced. The pressure of the consuming crowd diminished. The demands of the schedule. The absolute critical adherence to a prescribed self image that (in the very moment) felt contrived. All of that melted away. Wonderful ghee. I took a breath. I spanned a breadth. I spelled.
F. (got it).
O. (got it).
U. (got it).
R. (got it). And as I spelled oh so deliberately and consciously, an amazing thing happened. The tension relaxed. Billy felt more comfortable. Folks began to whisper and point. A miracle was being recognized.
Smiles were shared.
And the book was paid for in full.
We wended our way home, my brother and I. Content and happy and looking forward to how our gifts might be received.
And so I ask you:
What line are you in, Pilgrim?
How receptive are you to the miracles in check?
Wait with me. Slow down with me.
If only for a spell.

"Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake."
Victor Hugo

Night, night Billy. Sleep tight. I'll see you in the morning light. We'll look beneath the vinyl tree and see what Santa has brought to thee (as miraculously, you near your fifty sixth year). G'night Victor Hugo. We have a hunch you'll be blazing across the cosmos, ringing a quantum bell. Our best to Sylvia Plath. Night night, Carrie. Wear tulle and leotards (more often)! Night night, Willoree. You are a Canadian Plains Princess and (I) a Trapper and Trader. That seems fair. G'night Phoebe: darkness defines the light. Dream on, Isaac - Merry Christmas across each type of zone. See you in the morning, dear Sheila. Chase your rabbits and know that your vision is most useful in the New Land. Thanks Ma, that's the best gift ever. Olive, if you can't paws - bark. Hey, Walker - if not now, when? Sweet dreams, Blaine - after twenty some hours of listening, I get it. Thanks for showing your best face, Emmanual Levinas. And by the way Mary, sprightly is a word.
No one's positive work is in vain. Such is the marvelous nature of the Universe.
With love. In love. Through love and around love. Night night to you all.
Tomschulz

EXTRA : COMPELLING BONUS MATERIAL

Ach, Ja

Dear Grandmother
Whom I did not know,

ach, ja

I think of you at Christmas
When I use your recipes.
When I bake your stollen
I feel the sticky rightness of it.
When I beat egg whites for kisses
I wait for a clear day, knowing.
When I roll your butter cookies
I see the cutting board’s grain beneath them

so thin

Even my father, whose memory
of yours was perfection,

might approve.

All I know of your demise is that each night,
After you cooked and wearied yourself in service,
Your hands rested on your aproned lap,
You sighed

ach, ja

And you would fall asleep in your chair.
Your belly grew like a baby was in there.

aber, nein

It was a tumor. My great uncle opened you up,
You were full of pearls, and he closed you again, crying.

ach, ja

Now I’ve been opened and closed.
My hands are your hands.
Merry Christmas, Grandmother.

stille nacht.

—Mary S. de Wit
© 2011


While comprehending both the conveniences and pitfalls of a Cause and Effect existence, here at Empathinc. we prefer to live in a Call and Response Universe. This series is an exploration of that space.

Happy Hanukwanzmas from all of us at empathinc.

"Call and Response: Artist Carrie Schulz."

Your own ideas are sane and rational,
but this is my unconscious
you’re trying to use, not my rational mind. . . .
You’re handling something outside of reason.
You’re trying to reach progressive, humanitarian goals with
a tool that isn’t suited for the job.
Ursula K. LeQuin, The Lathe of Heaven, 1971

THE CALL: send 2-4 pieces of evidence.
It could be images of your work, work you like,
things you find interesting.

CARRIE SCHULZ' RESPONSE:

"Happy Tuesday #1"

I wrote this, but where to cash?
(Editor's note: we will gladly endorse this.)

"Happy Tuesday 2"

Happy ____day! Presto. Sometimes I see wonder in the daily.
Other times I just wonder.

"Happy part C"

Rushing is the new zen.
Really, I'd stay and chat but I'm off to learn how to relax.



"No Title"

Pink is the new black. Or, what am I looking for?

"On Space and Being":
A brief interview with Carrie Schulz, by Tomschulzartist:

TSA: Edditington first 'proved' the theory of relativity by viewing a total solar eclipse and taking pictures. It was the actual 'blocking' that provided the insight. Can you comment on the convoluted paths of discovery?
CRS: la la la precedent research la la la baron von haussmann chops up medieval paris la la la cholera outbreaks la la la olfactory revolution la la la people start closing the door to the bathroom la la la
TSA: Brilliant!
CRS: Brilliance is elusive right now. Perhaps just around the corner or hiding under my desk?
TSA: So brilliance is sometimes elusive? And yet, it is always just around the corner. Or better still, is being bent gravitationally so that you must look perhaps peripherally? How do you see this as applicable in the "big picture".
CRS: Pack the truck. Composition. Present a project. Composition. Write a paper / composition. Right. Exit strategy. Evaluate all pieces. Visualize it all fitting. Edit. Load shift load.
TWA: Then, we don't see the writing on the wall cause we expect another language, so that is what we see? Then how do we translate that language and what would our coping strategies be?
CRS: There is this part of me that just wants to draw, but it is cool because the questions are about interstitial spaces and times, so i think I can delve into how we undermine our current urbanity to find new ways of being dense.
TSA: How do you know if the endeavor is worthwhile when you are bucking up against prevailing models? Is it change to polish up the apple and call it a pear?
CRS: Isn't that what we are attempting to do? Allow thoughts and feelings to come forward into fruition without even knowing what that means or how to do it?
Every seed in every apple has the potential to make a new type of apple (I learned that at the farm market) still related to the model, but new, an offshoot, a trajectory, a wave or ripple moving embarking, crossing paths.
TWA: It is my observation that you live into change as much as any one I know. It isn't work ethic so much as desire. And the drive to actualize that desire into a reality. It's sculpture on the most realistic level.
CRS: I need to build a quiet zone around myself so I can get really loud!
TWS:We tend to forget that the space between the points of loci are chock a block full of information and that we are not passing through it all, unscathed. Is that the way we troll for knowledge?
CRS: I feel so completely different and yet so much more some semblance of self I always was. Known and unknown all at once, and I think if I can handle it staying in flux, I can be informed and shifting all at once. If Corbusier is Modernism, and Venturi is Postmodernism (have you read Complexity and Contradiction?) - where is the text for our expanding moment? Hope all is well in the abstractly concrete world.
TWA: Thanks, Carrie.

Carrie Schulz, currently a designer at LTL Architects, has been known to jump off boulders into the icy mountain waters, regardless of their depths.

While comprehending both the conveniences and pitfalls of a Cause and Effect existence, here at empathinc. we prefer to live in a Call and Response Universe. This series is an exploration of that space.

Thank you Carrie, for Responding to the Call.
By the way, did you know that Leonora Carrington was born on April 6, 1917? Coincidence? Or Continuity?
Hope all is well in your concretely abstract world. Tom.

We may have to learn that the infinite whirl of death and birth, out of which we cannot escape, is of our own creation, of our own seeking.
Lafcadio Hearn, "Out of the East", 1895

"On Being Apparent"

“The universe is composed of subjects to be communed with, not objects to be exploited. Everything has its own voice. Thunder and lightning and stars and planets, flowers, birds, animals, trees—all these have voices, and they constitute a community of existence that is profoundly related.”
Thomas Berry

Theodor Adorno said that, "we only know ourselves by knowing our fractured selves." Or something like that. I could look it up. So could you. And yeah, I agree with the sentiment in that each fracture is like an emotional growth ring on a tree - signifying a break, a loss, a cut, an exchange. I realized this one day when I told a friend that I would never get a tattoo. She tenderly took my hands and studied the scars and the callouses and wrinkles and declared, "Darling, you've been giving yourself tattoos for years."

Mary Geitner, Ben Ford, Phoebe Ford, Willoree Ford

Lately, I've been giving more thought and directed attention to my integrated self (such as it is). I have always maintained you know, divisions in my life. As if I were a discount store with a variety of departments. This included my work, my real work, my work for money. My relaxed time, my stressed time, my no time, my time in a bottle. And my rolls and assignments? Rows 12 through like, a billion. Artist, father, husband, son, brother, friend. Builder, teacher, student. Story teller, bad joke teller, William Teller. The aisles were wide, for the most part. Uh-Oh. Clean up on aisle 57.

Robert Walker Geitner III, "Self Portrait with Micky"

But all those shelves (while particularly handy for storing all the accumulated bric-a-brac of an inquisitive life) end up being divisive, casting shadows on shadows and aspersions on rugs.

Isaac Schulz

And so I am in the process of becoming my synthetic self. Working out of and recognizing, that creativity is a series of overlapping interludes. To even attempt to understand how this might evolve would be to encapsulate the very activity of synthesizing into a tangible bauble of a thought. A synapse fossilized in amber. It might give me something to hold up to the light, but with most of the shelves gone, where would I store that thought? Besides, understanding is beginning to seem so very inadequate. What I am curious about is beyond understanding.

Tom Schulz using tools inappropriately in the Spidey-Hole.

Being a father is such a necessary and critical format of being for me. Being a father consistently requires that I upgrade my contract with Understanding. Being a father is not so much challenging to me it is a direct challenge to me. Especially now that the kids are grown up and spread far afield, especially as they create their own unique and complex realities, and especially as they deign to allow my reality to intersect with theirs in spiraling patterns of overlapping aspirations.

Sheila Ennis, Carrie Schulz, Jason Andersen

Sometimes, when I step beyond my clever self, I am able to access my innate wisdom. You know what I'm talking about. You do that. You might call it clarity. Or perhaps maturity. I just know that in those moments, understanding is not required because you. I. We. Are literally drowning in knowledge. Like that Peace that passeth all understanding thing. In these moments, I know that I called out to my kids and they responded. And they called out to me and I responded. Still do. And even when we aren't acknowledging it, my kids and I are calling out to you. And you are responding. And you are calling out to us and we are responding.
And that is so very powerful. And that type of power never, no never. Sits on no shelf.

Empathinc. was registered as a domain at 8:00 AM, September 11, 2001. It is an artist's ongoing investigation into how we occupy space, embody our own stories, and develop synthetic strategies of fair exchange. All artwork and writing by Tom Schulz, unless otherwise noted.

"The God and The Universe Conversations". Week Four.

Hope grows with the ability to respond;
despair grows with the self-chosen
closing in of horizons.
John B. Cobb, and David Griffin
Process Theology:an Introductory Exposition

The God and The Universe Conversations. Week Four.

“Star Power”

Often The Universe was unnecessarily brusque. “Who created the stars?”, The Universe asked God. “Me? Or God?” “Does it matter,The Universe?”, asked God right back. “It does to me!”, exclaimed The Universe.

“You created the stars, then.”, God whispered.

“Always Time to be the Fool”
Video Sketch 2010©

“Hey, God what’s with the determination to always be direct and to the point?”

“You must be seeing something, I can’t (which of course is unlikely)”, replied God. “All I’m saying is look at wormholes, politicians and labyrinths”.

“Touche”, said The Universe.

“Knowing the Difference”

Photo by Kathy Richards

“Does God actually grant serenity?”, asked The Universe of God.

“It doesn’t actually need to be granted”, replied God. “It’s there for the taking.”

“Or the discovering?”, queried the Universe.

“Chaos”

“Who is responsible for creating chaos, God? God or The Universe?”, asked The Universe. “Oh, God thinks both God and The Universe are totally involved in chaos”, God surmised. “But doesn’t all that havoc cause pain and suffering?”, retorted The Universe. “Well”, said God, “it most often appears that way in the moment. But sometimes the way needs to be cleared in preparation for the new”.

“Harsh”, said The Universe.

“Blendered Family”

“So then, speaking of chaos”, pondered The Universe, “What about things that get all in an uproar, y’know, like sunspots, and all this energy is emitted out into the aether, and certainly The Universe doesn’t know what it all adds up to. Is that chaos, God?”

“It depends”, returned God. “Sometimes God prefers to refer to it as Absolute Beauty.”

From "Hymn to Matter":

"Blessed be you, universal matter, immeasurable time, boundless ether, triple abyss of stars and atoms and generations: you who by overflowing and dissolving our narrow standards or measurement reveal to us the dimensions of God. Blessed be you, impenetrable matter: you who, interposed between our minds and the world of essences, cause us to languish with the desire to pierce through the seamless veil of phenomena."

Teilhard de Chardin Hymn of the Universe

This concludes Week Four of
"The God and The Universe Conversations".

All art and writing by Tom Schulz unless otherwise noted, or unless it is so cool
he will try to get away with claiming it as his own.

"Remembering the Past Experiment. Week Three"

"There is not past, no future;
everything flows in an eternal present."

James Joyce (1882-1941)

“Reaching Past”

I find it interesting that the collage was “invented” at the same time that Einstein was thinking about train whistles and clocks. Cause that is what the Past is like for me - some wacky montage of errant tumbleweeds with no determinable point of departure or arrival.

All aboard.

“Commanomaly / Conjoined”

In retrospect, hindsight seems backwards. I have discovered substantial comfort in aligning those categories that I have heretofore surmised as being disparate.

“Origin of Constellations”

Some folks believe that God created the Heavens and the Earth in six days and rested on the seventh. Which doesn’t make much sense to me for two reasons: 1.) God would never allow Herself to be rushed, when there were so many details to arrange. And B.) Why go to all that trouble and just take off one day? It would hardly be worth the effort.

“1487?”

I have begun to emulate Estes Burrell, from the tree farm. What I am doing of a day, I now do of a night, too. If I saw wood of a day, then I saw wood of a night. If I get stuck in some conundrum of a day, I’ll mire up in the mud to the axle of a night.

“Stylist____Jackie_____”

There is no single moment that bears the weight of radical novelty. We each of us attach significance to time like an ornament on a Christmas Tree. An appointment for a haircut. Time spent reading Heidegger. Or time spent thinking of you.

Next: Perhaps "The Mechanics of Crepe Myrtle". We'll see. One never knows. These things take on a time frame of their own.

"Call and Response: Mary de Wit"

Seek the morsel that's beyond your grasp.
Seek the saga that defies what's apparent.
The eager heart carries a secret
that even archangels cannot reach.

Seek that.
Molana Rumi

"I think you live this."
Mary de Wit

Human Invention / Human Intervention

In my practice as an artist, I view energy not only as a resource for making things,
but also as a vital thread linking call and response.

"Fractal Fireflies #19 (Emergence Theory Subset)"©
2009

From The "Spidey-Hole Series, Fractal Fireflies Subset"

I see space as a stage in which existence transpires.
But additionally,
I am interested in the composition of sets of existence
and how they relate and interact on that stage.

M-611© 2009 Carrie Schulz

And even while time is embraced as a dimension, I see it also

as series of overlapping waves that contain the very essence of process.

"Fractal Fireflies #21 - 7AM/7PM
(Emergence Theory Subset)"© 2009

From The "Spidey-Hole Series, Fractal Fireflies Subset"

I see process, then, as more than the making of a particular work of art.
I see the magnificent process containing multiple Histories,
speculation, public discourse, debate and critique.

Walker Hall, University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, Arkansas 2007
Machado and Silvetti, Architects

I see the process as being receptive enough to contain joy,
myriad questions, concerns, outrage and the outrageous.

This is how I see Art as Life.
Life as Art.

It is what I see,
when I see You.

"Excuse me, Justice is Served"

"Why be just in a universe that is largely unjust?"

Lawrence Kohlberg

(October 25, 1927 – January 19, 1987)

"Our Guernica" (detail, "This is Art")©                                2006
Interactive Mural (currently located at Sanctuary Bar, Charlotte, NC)
Visual dialogue between artists Tom Schulz and Isaac Schulz.

Kohlberg used the idea of a child's proximodistal development (from the center outward)
to illustrate the concept of a human relatedness
that might ultimately evolve into the individual's
consideration of the welfare of others.

Many years earlier, Galileo developed a similar model of our solar system, but his heliocentric constructs were condemned by the Roman Inquisition in 1632.

Now, Stephen Hawking refers to this awareness of centrality to be the birth of Modern Science.

Such is the spiral of human awareness.

"Mosaic" (installation view)©                               2007

Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH

We ache to discover a center. 

The center is our Point of Beginning - from which the measure of all interactions may be calculated.

"At the Zoo" ©                                                                         2006

From "The Systemic Amazement Factorial"©

But, it may be prudent to work under the premise that there is more than one center. That there are as many centers as there are aspirations. 

As many centers as there are tears.

And that these centers overlap in the big moment.

"Fractal Fireflies #12 (Prayer Abacus)"©               2009

From The "Spidey-Hole Series, Fractal Fireflies Subset"

It is in the intersections of these overlapping centers that reside 

the most complex pattern of human relatedness. 

Here, the interactive connectedness of kindness may take hold,

Here, we may find solace in the invigorating comfort of shared narratives.  

For within this tapestry of histories is tenderly woven our own particular story.

Our story that need be shared to be heard.

"The idea here is to give people a new vocabulary, to speak in terms of resilience."

DR. MARTIN SELIGMAN, on a new Army program requiring that all 1.1 million of its soldiers take training meant to head off mental health problems.

NY Times 8/18/09

Read article here.

Where is your center, human?

"Striangulation"

"No, people don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better. And they want that choice."

President Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States.

"Fractal Fireflies #15 (Prayer Abacus)"© 2009

From The "Spidey-Hole Series, Fractal Fireflies Subset"

"Codependents believe they are somehow more capable than others who need their direction or suggestions to fulfill tasks they are responsible to complete."

Read more here.

Bronxscape - Construction Detail 2008

Parsons School of Design

Roof top "oasis" at a home for assisted living. A gathering space for those individuals that have 'aged' out of foster care.

I imagine that future Historians will have a field day analyzing what I refer to as our current World Situation. Perhaps they will weigh out our intentions. Critique our problem solving skills. Certainly they will document the many ways that we (as a Global Civilization) tended to hold onto that which we Know. I wouldn't be surprised if that tendency will be viewed not as respect for tradition, but as fear based decision making.

"Portal Study, Micro/Macro" © 2008

From the Spidey-Hole Series - Bloated Geometries

As we insist on maintaining our Mechanistic concepts of relatedness, we will always see our government, our jobs, our obligations and our responsibilities as something outside of our Selves. We will see the pattern of our lives in the classic model of triangulation. In this regard, we become a Codependent Nation.

Yet, we thrive within our communities. Our Book Clubs. Our ball teams. At our family gatherings. Openings. Concerts. We thrive with our friends, within the creativity of our hobbies and avocations.
Our Faiths, our Questions, and our Dreams.

I suspect that we can adjust to bouncing interest rates and meager rationing.
It may be possible that we can even live with diminished Hopes.
But Joy?

We can not. We must not.
Live without Joy.

"Toe River - Celo, NC" © 2009

From "The Systemic Amazement Factorial"©

Empathinc. understands that many topics included within this blog are taxing.

So.

Here is a quiet space. Please view this short bit of footage.

Experience the complexity of textures and sound, as you care to.

I'll put on some tea.