TOTEMS: STATIONS OF THE CROSS

A man stands in the absence of a horizon, landscape details, or other clues about his spatial environment. Solely his body achieves a sense of space. His nose, dropped towards his feet, creates the mental image of the control space they occupy. The breeze bellows, matting his mass. He removes the cardboard from his collar, pulls a pencil from his pocket and proceeds to display the inconsistencies of his draftsmanship. He has incomplete control of the pictorial space. He whirls. Any indication that the physical law of his particular micro-universe is understood is confirmed in his nonsensical scratches. Yet,in stride and in stroke, he carries on creating something that is unclear but also unfettered. Proud patinations . . . but years of marks add up to nothing. Nonetheless the man is self-contained – an environmental illusion unto himself. He stops, exhausted, but full of bliss. He is successful in his mind, quite sure of his non-vision. And after the man died, all that remained was the cardboard collar. And through time and atmosphere the marks revealed a map. And others asked if the map was there all along. And no one knew, and few cared, and even fewer realized it was his way home.