Published in exhibit brochure:  Perpetual Motion, Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, Montana, 2008

PERPETUAL MOTION

For over a decade now, I have sketched while riding on buses, trains, or in cars, capturing urban ephemera flowing by. One day in 2002, while at a lumberyard watching large trucks zoom by, I was awestruck by their large masses hurtling through space, as an almost palpable presence of the energy and power underlying our civilization. I wondered how to capture that dynamic momentum in my art. I began using my “drive-by” sketches done while in vehicles as the main inspiration for my studio work, as they recorded a direct experience of that rushing velocity.

Drawing this way, I remove elements in a state of flux from their original context – accumulating and compressing miles of space and time into one image. I invent ambiguous, dizzying spaces, and work freely to convey immediacy and a sense of transience. I am fascinated by my surroundings and the visual bombardment of mobility, and I love finding their expression in the interplay of color, shape, line, form, and texture.

For several years, I just drew while going places. Then in 2004, I had a few days to kill in Reno, so I rode about half its bus system and created many sketches. I found I could spend most of a day riding several routes, totally focused on drawing and writing to document the journey’s experiences. Since then, I’ve ridden many bus routes in Salt Lake, Denver, Little Rock, and Santa Fe with no destination – just to explore urban stretches, watch people, and draw like crazy.

My exploration of cities and hyper-mobility led me to keenly observe our world. I noticed our ease of travel and ability to enjoy goods from all over the planet – people and stuff going all over the place, all the time. In surveying Reno, I was struck that most of the city was built within the last thirty years, and felt trepidation in seeing this new sprawl. About this time, I developed an uneasy hunch that a global challenge was going under-appreciated. For months I read about system-limits in pursuit of an answer. A year later, a friend who had attended an energy symposium told me that we face future energy shortfalls. On a gut level, I immediately felt this was a big deal, the proverbial 800-pound gorilla in the shadow of modernity.

I learned all about “Peak Oil” (meaning that oil production will max out and then decline irreversibly.) Growing numbers of energy experts think we are at peak now, or will be within a few years. So far, no alternative energies can surpass petroleum for density or scalability. Rising oil prices will cascade through the economy, raising other prices. Our entire way of life is structured by cheap energy – our city layouts, transportation, global trade, and food production. Big changes are coming and how they will play out is uncertain.

Now as I bus around and observe the vast scale of our cities, I have much more to consider. We take for granted suburbia’s expanse, designed around cheap oil, not considering the challenge we will have in crossing those expanses after gas prices soar. The word “travel” comes from the French “travail,” which meant both work and suffering. It used to be much harder to get around, and it may be once again. That’s just the tip of the iceberg of how this issue may affect us.

I have channeled my concerns into writing an article about peak oil, and co-founding an activist group, Post Carbon Salt Lake. I developed a PowerPoint presentation on peak oil that I delivered to our mayor and other policymakers. This is an ongoing project for me, to inform others and stay informed myself about this issue. I don’t want my artwork to be overtly pedantic, although I do believe in art’s power to heighten the awareness of life’s experiences and lead cultures to new maps of reality; new ways of seeing. As an artist aware of this issue, I am driven to ask, “Where are we going; what are we rushing towards?”