AXIMUM autonomy of thought and action, happiness for the greatest number (in my case via the creation and sharing of art, progressing toward the dissemination of both art and philosophy)— recompense, if any, pocketed empathetically through cognizance of the extent to which these enlighten or empower others, as well as financially to the extent that such rewards, however modest, are returned— is my outlook.

Creative efforts to date, in either verse or pigment, have evidenced claustrophilia, a love of tight enclosure. Verses have been limited in size to duoquat, my own eight-line fixed, or hikue, three-line, seventeen-syllable haiku forms, whereas paintings likewise have been of set dimensions— small or medium sized, according to series type.

Such yielding of oneself, while representative of a yearning for womb security, is generally dissimilar in motive to restrictions obtained in submission to a lover. While the last can be a great joy, and both are voluntarily self-imposed, they arise of differing impulse— the first, in order to perfect by practice a particular vehicle of expression; the second, for direct and/or empathic sensual enjoyment.

However one philosophical work-in-progress, Faith by Reason: Being, Purpose, and Salvor. With HiKues and Forecasts. A Philosophy of Law, Life, and Love. In Six Volumes— while restricted in the lengths of its paragraphs, the number of its major divisions or books, and via the inclusion as the sole body of one of its volumes a diverse collection of hikues— will otherwise be limited neither in length or content, its intention being to refresh and freely expand upon ideas germinated in past art and writing, as well as introduce new lines of thought.

These latter include, besides codification of my form of homespun utilitarianism, exercises in the art of speculation, both physical and metaphysical, that hopefully will come to be regarded as at least informed if crackpot. One such concept is that a materialist outlook does not preclude unexplainable occurrences— even excepting aliens and UFO’s— and that such cryptonatural phenomena can extend even to salvor, a fully naturalistic means whereby a conscious existence after death is anticipatable.

This is built upon a unitheological hypothesis that does not start with the question, “Does God exist?” but rather “What is God?” ‘God’ being equated with ‘ultimate reality,’ and neither singular nor plural, much less remotely anthropomorphic. More ‘basis’ than ‘ground’ of being, the God of liberal theism and that of an altruistic form of nontheism are found— at least as concerns their broadly immanent or relevant nature— to be one and the same.

 
ART
 

I incorporate several approaches: historic fantasy, as in Titanic Series; black humorous, metaphysical refuse and refugees; melancholic, dreamscapes of inert desperation; and melodramatic, visions more campy than frightful. Detail illuminates and obfuscates: stark incongruities alongside everyday objects, alien beings in familiar places, evidences of human frailty— all touched by the gray of mortality.

In the first years of the New Millennium, the weirdness has continued— albeit combined with a celebration of the American back-road and an occasional brightening— in the roomier and wider Car Series. In all my work the viewer is invited to explore increasingly difficult but potentially more-rewarding levels of interpretation. Only through art and imagination can we expand our reality.

 
WRITING
 

We like to think of ourselves as honest— if not with others, at least with ourselves. Yet critical self-appraisals— those that truly transcend functionality— are far from routine, having at best the capability to jolt us into shock, laughter, even a partial or complete retooling of our self-knowledge.

Expressions characteristic of effective word-smithing are a product of such an ongoing effort. Take-no-prisoners logic, while often creating humor as a by-product, carried to its extreme bears the veneer of crackpotism— yet an ‘aha’ insanity capable of evolving into precepts often legitimized by later enlightenment and touching on, among other things, person-world transactions, and more than occasionally focused on intersexual ones.

A similar trend is making itself evident in society as a whole. As automation frees us from drudge labor, we scale up from a money to an art society. Work becomes a satisfying option rather than grim necessity, while realizations of cultural expression— from MTV to paintings, operas to video games— once the esoterica of a Frick or Morgan, are increasingly produced, collected, and enjoyed by all.