LONG WALKS IN THE DARK:

I spent the bulk of my formative years walking around late nights by myself.  By this practice, I accumulated a vision of my place in the universe devoid of the trappings of everyday life that surrounded me (the tedium of jobs, money issues, obligations and responsibilities placed upon me by society, etc.).  It was my form of enlightenment, a communion with myself.

In the dark, impressions mean nothing.  Everything I suppose is wrong. In other words, true freedom suddenly becomes possible, freedom from oppressive forms, from standards and archetypes.  A great liberating force overtakes the individual who saunters long enough in the dark with a mind opened to its powers.  Walking in the dark for lengths of time, one can more clearly perceive the larger universe. 

One gets lost, and finds one’s self again. 

In the tri-state area of New York, where I’ve spent the bulk of my life, one might assume that finding such night darkness is difficult. Not so. I’ve searched this area of the world long enough to know exactly where those myriad places are, and I have returned to them time and again.  From the foot of the Catskill Mountains near the Shawangunks where the Wallkill river meanders, to alcoves hidden throughout the Hudson Valley, to the back alleys of certain NYC neighborhoods, to the flat, southeastern shores of Long Island (where I began), late night darkness is at hand for those who search it out.  The caveat is to be willing and able to traverse it.  This becomes (perhaps) a feat more suitable for an adolescent, someone at an age when he or she is still enthralled by the prospect of “breaking and entering” into areas left alone by the public at large. For my adult self, this thrill has not been altogether lost, though I am more cautious these days. A “No Trespassing” sign is no longer an invitation at my age.  I’m relegated to places I’m actually allowed to wander.  Now, I engage in deeper explorations as an artist through the process of painting.

A word on painting:

 Many of the images that appear in my paintings at present were first formulated while climbing fences and plunging into abandoned spaces as a youth.  Those trespasses also informed the way in which I paint, beyond the content of the works therein.  The content, oftentimes meaningless, follows the form in most instances. 

What is NOT shown becomes more vital than what is.  The mystery becomes the ultimate content.  The beginning and the end beget each other ad infinitum.

I paint as if documenting the account of a perilous journey through dimly lit passages.  Yet, a journey that seems perilous sometimes stumbles upon a joke. What is found in the dark is not always wrought with deep significance or spiritual power.  Often, there is nothing around the corner, if not something absurd or just plain benign.  Frequently, you’ll find something that brings you back down to reality in a humorous way.  Consider finding an abandoned building or house covered in overgrowth, a place that is shrouded in the past and left to decay.  You approach with your imagination running wild, thinking you might come across a corpse if you dig far enough into the place…You travel deep into sagging rooms dotted with mildew, hit pitch black passageways broken randomly by shafts of green light from the outside world…The whole scene smacks of the supernatural…and yet nothing comes out of it except for a few grimy, ripped up pornographic magazines tossed in a detritus-filled corner. This was often the only way a teen encountered such material during the early to mid nineties.

West Sayville, NY circa 1992-1996:

 One such place that held this experience for me as a teenager (multiple times) was a local abandoned complex that had allegedly been used as a telecommunications station by German spies during World War 1 (by a company known as “Telefunken”).  Telefunken developed the first antenna to transmit between America and Europe.  According to historical accounts, a radio specialist was able to intercept a telegraph being sent from Germany to the complex there in the most remote section of West Sayville, NY.  The US National Guard caught wind of this and put a stop to it.  As the story goes, they cleared out the German spy occupation, but left dismantled remnants of the Telefunken site for later generations to dig up. The entire complex was situated in a hidden area beyond a fence flanking the Sayville train tracks.

 Beyond the tracks, in the main field, stood a widely scattered series of tall, concrete towers about two and a half stories high.  These towers were windowless and littered with generations of graffiti.  They had no doors.  Instead, they were accessible through underground passages. These were the first structures I happened upon in my exploration of the space, hence their sheer scale and location in the open brush. I haven’t been back there since 1996; the year I graduated from high school.  I’d be surprised if anything remains of the place today.

I first became aware of this site during evenings wandering around a stretch of train tracks close to where I lived at the time. I remember the first time I observed that someone had torn open the chain link fence, likely with a pair of standard-issue bolt cutters.  It was the only possible way through besides digging a tunnel underneath (the top of the fence was lined with barbed wire).  It was an open invitation.  I nonchalantly slipped inside and thus began a journey well trail blazed by another, but mysterious to me none-the-less. 

Although Sayville was (and still is) a fairly pristine town compared to others nearby, this less visible area behind the tracks was somewhat disheveled and polluted.  Thickets of pine brush choked with plastic bags, smashed beer bottles and newspapers covered the place. In addition to the towers, broken brick walls surrounding graffiti-covered cement foundations sulked and continued to crumble. Exposed rebar and shredded electrical wiring that may or may not have been live (I wasn’t going to find out), the obligatory presence of mangled shopping carts (how did they always get into places like this?), endless scraps of garbage tucked away in weeds and brambles all offered a narrative of decay and neglect.  The most curious object: a child’s tricycle left keeled over in a sand-filled ditch.  Only a dismembered toy doll was needed to complete the cliché (none to be found).

Further into the area, there lay a field dotted with leafless trees, leading toward a more thickly wooded space where a dirt path snaked through for about half a mile.  The path through the foliage lead first toward an abandoned delivery truck with its trailer opened wide at the back.  After what might have been decades of rust, it ceased to resemble anything like a truck, but rather a gigantic, gutted animal carcass.  Opposite this abomination was a palatial, rundown building resembling an aircraft hangar overgrown with weeds and vines.  A heavy, rusted steel front door teetering on imminent collapse hung loosely from its hinges.  When cracked open (carefully), the scene inside was decidedly unattractive for further explorations.  Dead smells. Garbage. Potentially poisonous aerosol fumes.  Darkness.  Silly me, I went on in, paced the area a little, and left.  Toward the back of the building, the floor felt weak and I likely risked falling through it.  Not an option. 

The conclusive findings most gathered in places such as these were not necessarily worthy of any historical society’s collection.  The aforementioned soiled pages of skin magazines, the remnants of juvenile “occult” rituals, complete with putrefied rodent remains, charred embers and burnt book pages (probably Mad Libs or crossword puzzle books), perhaps a scrap left over from the old Telefunken wire-tapping days would turn up, but imbued with no real significance.  Overall, I determined that places such as this were often designated as private sanctuaries from the more restricted life of the masses; a hidden locale where typically misunderstood teens, or lonely vagrants of all ages could go forth and act out their necessary rituals and transgressions.  For me, it was simply a place to explore, an environment beyond the radar of what could be considered “normalcy” (a relative term).

More infrequent than these aimless excursions were moments in which I was able to reach a “peak experience” while in exploration mode.  One night, I had the premonition to hop a tall fence dividing the woods surrounding the old abandoned complex and the backyard of a local technical school, which I had scouted out one previous afternoon.  It was a clear night.  The stars shone brightly (a rare occurrence in any area of Long Island west of the Peconic).  I climbed the fence and proceeded to scout out the area beyond it.

Wandering this new territory, I happened upon a vast, empty yard neighboring a baseball field to my right (belonging to the Edward J. Bosti Elementary School), and the tech school on the opposite side.  I looked up into the night sky, and laid flat on my back with my arms stretched out on the damp grass. 

Gazing into the sky, I perceived that I was not looking upward, but outward. 

There I spied infinity.  I felt the sensation of being small beyond small, floating through space.  This was a macro-cosmic reality I had not experienced before.  In finding myself insignificant in the face of the universe, I, in turn found a deeper significance within the confines of my life on Earth.  Here, I bore witness to an ultimate truth.

Life’s meaning, I gathered, is never a given.  We CREATE meaning.  We are all potential artists, developers of our own visions if we allow ourselves to view reality in particular ways.

Paths toward a deeper understanding of our place in the universe need not lead us to Tibet.  An empty lot not far from my house was enough.