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"THE SHAMANS HAVE IT GOIN' ON," says Alyce Santoro.
That's the kind of statement that, by itself, we kind of "get," kind of don't. Sure, anyone who might be called a shaman, a healer, a spiritual guide, "has it goin' on"; they understand things that we probably don't. (Yet.) But, we don't understand what it is that they understand that we don't. (Yet.) Often, they're not like us, they're better than us -- at least in our minds.
Alyce's work, thankfully, is the kind of stuff that can help disabuse us of notions like these. So: who the heck is she?
Well, she may indeed be some kind of shaman. But first, she's one of us. She may be an "artist" with "big ideas" (not that she'd ever say that), but she can talk to you. And her art can, too: it's immediate, it's playful, it's pretty damn nice looking. And if you want "meaningful," "big thinking," well, that's there too. And she can break it down.
Alyce was kind enough to put hours of her time into an out-of-the-blue request for a Q&A with the Horse. Finding out about her work by stumbling onto her website was a happy accident. Getting several installments of her fun-to-read replies was good fortune, plain and simple.
TWH: Your site features this Joseph Campbell quote:
from alycesantoro.com homepage
design by: jennifer muller
at www.luckytangerine.com
Apparently art is what keeps you afloat. Where might you be without it?
AS: goodness, i shudder to think. the making of art is part of it. . . but the artwork itself is more of a by-product. it's the constant practice with and honing of an ability to interface with the "unseen world," the subtler aspects of reality (and by this i'm referring to things like inspiration and intuition. . . emotion-based stuff that our culture tends to rely on less than more "logical" and quantifiable ways of knowing) that does it for me. this is where the shamans have it goin' on. shamanism is all about cultivating a relationship and a dialog with forces that seem bigger than us through reverence, ritual, and ceremony. artists and shamans have a lot in common. . . they are both meaning-seekers, meaning makers. what saves me is finding meaning in the water. it's never "just" water, and it's never "just" swimming. it's that archetypal moment when we realize that the more we struggle, the more we get pulled under. the moment we relax all our muscles and let the current take us, we bob right up to the surface. my artworks are tools to help me get into that state of mind, or remind me of it.
Looking at your websites, one might get the sense that you're primarily a visual artist. But sound, and text, for example, seem to be very important parts of your life and work. Boundaries between mediums don't mean much, do they?
i marvel at people who can say everything they need to say with a canvas and a few tubes of paint, or with a bunch of words on a page. my "thing" tends to be more about a comparative study. i started out wanting to make art about science, so I got a degree in marine biology, then one in scientific illustration. but i quickly realized that what i wanted to say about science was more about the breathtaking miraculousness of it, about the irony and conceit in the suggestion that any study could ever be truly "objective," or that the scientific method is somehow outside of, and perhaps even more "valid" than, creativity. i guess the point i'm trying to make with my work is that it's all one thing. . . we're all curious about the nature of reality, and we're all making inquiries into it using whatever resources we have available to us, be they particle accelerators, grand pianos, or laptops. or a little of each.
How did you begin to realize that you had so much to say, and that there were so many ways to say it?
goodness, i'm not sure. i guess all this mostly started to happen when i was at RISD, enrolled in their graduate scientific illustration program. though it's a technical certificate program without a lot of room for electives, i often found myself in the letterpress shop and silkscreen studio and textile shop. i was working by day as a research assistant in oceanography at URI, then i'd go home and go to art school at night. it was a strange time. . . i felt a little out of place no matter where i was. the scientists thought of me as some artist with a job in science, and the artists thought of me as a scientist with an art habit. i would spend weeks at a time at sea collecting samples and drawing and writing in my sketchbook and reading books about quantum physics. i guess it was around then that the interconnections between things started to hum and glow and buzz in a way i felt compelled to express.
On your SonicFabric.com site, in explaining the "1/2 Life Tell-tail Thangka," you describe it as "inspired by Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags and 'tell-tails' used on sailboats to tell the wind direction. [They] are precorded with the Sounds of (1/2) Life collage, including sounds collected in the Peruvian rainforest, Jack Kerouac, my high-school punk band, the Beatles, and Beethoven." How is it that one hears the sounds recorded in the fabric of the thangka?
sound is emitted by running a tape head over the surface of the fabric, and listening either through headphones or an amplifier. so far, i've been making individual hand-held units from old tape walkmen. it's very simple, actually. . . just unscrew the head and remount it in a position that allows it to glide smoothly over the fabric, making good contact with it. the sound one hears is very much like scratching a record backwards, but more garbled. that's because there are 4 tracks (layers) of sound on every strand of tape. i had no idea that the stuff would actually be audible (another by-product. . . ), so i didn't make my collages with that in mind. but i hope with some further experimentation. . .
The idea of Tibetan prayer flags, as you say on your website, is that they hang "outdoors in auspicious locations where their blessings can be activated and sent off into the world on the wind." Your thangkas, by extension, would seem to transmit both a blessing from, and a tribute to, the things in your life that have meant a lot to you. In your words, you call them "sounds I considered sacred." So: what is sacred?
in this case, what i mean by sacred is something that's been profoundly meaningful, influential, and nostalgic to me personally. some of what's recorded onto the tape could be considered "sacred music" in the sense that it was purposefully created as an ode to the divine (monks chanting, for example). the ravings of my high school punk band are less intentional, but inspired nonetheless. the sound collages i make for sonic fabric are definitely meant not only as blessings and tributes, but as little encapsulations, slices of the human experience. in a sense, as long as the source of this crazy thing that inspires us remains a mystery, everything is sacred.
You playfully refer to "Determinism" in your work, and publish what you call the "CHOOSE DETERMINISM LEAFLET," a "Propaganda/self- quiz designed to assist you in adopting a fitting personal philosophy (you may have no choice)." This is what you've done, right?
details from the Choose Determinism leaflet
oh boy, this is a biggie. . .
there was a particular moment in my past when it suddenly dawned on me that any semblance of control i'd thought i'd had over the unfolding of my life was a complete illusion. life is like a sailboat race...you're at the helm and you have a course and a destination in mind, but you're constantly having to readjust. . . you're ultimately at the mercy of bigger forces, like wind, tide, and current. i realized that up 'til then i'd pretty much been operating from an existentialist standpoint (this whole consciousness thing is ultimately meaningless, and we are "condemned to be free" . . .every choice we make is entirely our own responsibility). it seemed like a huge relief, a burden lifted, to come to the realization that the big stuff is really not up to me (a little like the shaman-swimmer thing. . . the swimming is in the not-struggling). but there just had to be more to it than that. . .
in the middle of this revelation, i called my father, with whom i often consult during philosophical dilemmas (he majored in eastern religion and philosophy in the 60's). he tried to assure me that there's no such thing as intermittent free will...either the universe has been evolving like clockwork according to strict physical laws ever since the big bang, or it's a chaotic mess, but not both, and not a little of each.
but there IS a little of each going on! isn't there?
this free will vs. determinism thing was beginning to smack of another conundrum i'd been mulling over quite a bit. . . quantum physics vs. classical physics. scientists working around the clock to figure out how it can be that a lemon, though it appears to be a lemon, when you really really look at it, is made up of...nothing. or at least not a thing we've had words for, or machines to detect, or theories to describe, before.
AH-HA, i said to myself, that's IT. . .
my dad had said something else during that same conversation that was key. . . he said that, in a world where there's no free will, there may be just one thing we do have control over...our thoughts. he said that's why the eastern philosophies had always been so appealing to him. . . they teach us that, though we may have no control over an ever-changing, unfathomable universe, we can choose to feel a sense of peace inside.
our thoughts. seemingly "nothing". just the stuff the physicists are looking for. . . and just the stuff the buddhists had a handle on all along.
so that's it. determinism and classical physics are inextricably linked, just as free will and quantum physics are linked. all these things are, in fact, functioning simultaneously. there's a slight misunderstanding however, regarding the responsibility that comes with human lucidity and self-awareness. these oddly large and convoluted organs in our heads, the ones we reckon we're only using some small percentage of, are constantly thinking away these thoughts we think of as "nothing", when actually they're serving as quite efficient, if unwitting, lemon generators.
so when i say CHOOSE DETERMINISM i'm really saying EMBRACE THE PARADOX. i'm alluding to something the string theorists seem not to want to admit...that if they were able to DEMONSTRATE their theory, it would reveal the true power, potential, and purpose of the mind.
and that leads me to the orange doughnuts. . .
the "orange donuts"
of the Tell-tail Thangka
Your "1/2 Life Tell-tail Thangka" and the "Monk/Messenger Bag" ("part traditional Buddhist monk, and part NY bike messenger") suggest the influence of Buddhism. Would you say that that's right?
ohyes. i wanted the design of the bag to be based on the practices and traditions of the culture that inspired it. and I wanted it to be functional and efficient in an urban environment too. also hoping that, in whatever subtle way, its austere simplicity and the content of the tape, might emanate some positive effect. . .
sketch for the
“Monk/Messenger Bag”
If I understand correctly, some of the Sonic Fabric material is hand-loomed and used at a craft cooperative for Tibetan women refugees and Nepal. How did you arrange this? What kind of contacts/experiences have come out of this association?
i emailed ganden thurman at tibet house here in new york (i'd been taking some classes with robert thurman there) to ask if he knew of any tibetan weavers i might commission to work with me on this project. he suggested I contact some of the craftspeople listed in their newsletter. i sent out a message to several of them, and daniel tamang of rugsandcrafts.com replied immediately. he lives in berkeley, california, and is the liaison to the craft coop in nepal. i'm very excited to do more work with the coop. i haven't had a chance to go over there yet. . . but i hope to very soon!
You have a beautiful letterpress piece called the "Om Campaign," which states the existence of a "Campaign to replace the dial-tone with Om." This too is quite playful, but I think you're hinting at something bigger, about sound, and the harmony of all things. What is your understanding or belief of the "universal note" of Om?
'Om Campaign' detail
again, the buddhists intuited something long ago that string theorists are only just beginning to explore: that at the most fundamental level, all things are inherently composed of a wave, a vibration. i have a piece titled "WAVES become MATTER," which is a picture of an OM sri yantra (meditation symbol or diagram) next to an image of the sound OM allegedly created by a "tonoscope," an apparatus that produces "sonorous figures" by vibrating metal filings on a plate. it's really astounding to see the two images next to one another, and how uncannily similar they are. as far as the dialtone goes, i guess i was trying to suggest that maybe it's a matter of perception. . . maybe the dialtone IS om, maybe it always has been that easy to tap into it. . . just listen. . . it's all around us, in everything.
Carrying some Buddhist resonance (whether intentional, accidental, or not) are your "Homeopathic Remedies for the 5 Ills of Society" -- five salvaged brown dropper bottles which contain:
"Violence" - produced by soaking a bullet in distilled water.
"Consumerism" - distilled water purchased at Wal-mart.
"Detachment" - a drop of super glue in distilled water.
"Alienation" - an empty bottle.
"Greed" - produced by soaking coins in distilled water.
These reflect, and expand upon, Buddhism's "three poisons" of greed, anger, and ignorance. How did the piece come to you?
[it] came to me in one fell swoop shortly after 9/11. it seemed significant to me that there were five, since i'd been very interested in the healing altar used in a north-coast Peruvian shamanic tradition. The "mesa", as it's called, honors the five directions: north, south, west, east, and "axis mundi," or center. the directions all correspond to aspects of the body (spiritual, physical, emotional, mental, and the confluence of all of them, respectively), and it seemed to me that these remedies provided an elixir for each direction (aspect).
Can you speak to some of the art/people/experiences that have led you to where you are? Do you work from any sense of "tradition"? A 'fitting personal philosophy' applies not to just to an individual's morality or ethics or what-have-you, but to what they create, too, yes?
my work really has everything to do with having been an only child, raised in a log cabin in the woods by two loving, secure people who believed i should choose my own religion, and who encouraged creativity, self-discipline, and independence. i learned a lot of what i know from spending a lot of time, often alone, in nature. . . sailing, hiking, swimming, cross-country skiing, growing a garden.
i knew when i began my undergraduate education in marine biology that i wanted to be an artist. but i loved science too, and knew that i wanted to find a way to combine them both. at first i thought my mission would be to make science more accessible through art, and so an obvious next step was to attend graduate school to study scientific illustration. but the longer i worked at my day job as a research assistant, the more i came to realize that it's not just the 'laypeople' who are in need of a sense of the magic and mystery of science, it's the scientists themselves. at that point, my work started to become more conceptual, more multi-media. in addition to having access to all sorts of resources at RISD, i was living in a loft in providence, in very close proximity to lots of extremely innovative and inspiring visual and sound artists.
there was one pivotal, revelatory moment, however, when i knew i'd officially crossed the line from scientist to artist. i was at an allen ginsberg lecture in 1993, during which he said two things that changed my life forever. one was "WHEN THE MUSE CALLS, ANSWER." in pointing out the rareness, uniqueness, and preciousness of the moment one feels a sense of inspiration, and the importance of maintaining an awareness of it, even recording it if possible, i became a wholehearted devotee of "the muse." the other thing mr. ginsberg said that stuck with me that night was "NOTICE WHAT YOU NOTICE." it's kind of a different way of saying the same thing. . . a reminder to pay attention, to honor the things that stand out to you and you alone. these things are clues, messages from a force we can only sense.
'Evolution of an Artist' detail
a couple of years after this event, i put together a piece entitled "EVOLUTION OF AN ARTIST", in which i lay out some guidelines and tenets that might be of help in maximizing one's creative potential. i planned to use myself as the test subject (and certainly have. . . ), but in the meanwhile, i sent out copies along with thank-you letters to those whose inspiration i could directly identify, including allen ginsberg and laurie anderson.
as part of the "EVOLUTION OF AN ARTIST" booklet, i had cocktail napkins gold-leafed with a paragraph that i later realized was a direct paraphrase of allen ginsberg's advice: "WHEN THE MUSE CALLS, ANSWER".
A more mundane question. Could you list some favorite books/movies/art?
books: so hard to pin down favorites. my room is sort of overflowing with them. looking around, there are books on quantum physics and herbal medicine. field guides, spanish, chess, knitting. one of my favorites is "dreaming with open eyes: the shamanic spirit in twentieth century art and culture" by michael tucker. there's a book here called "exploring the invisible: art, science, and the spiritual" by lynn gamwel (and there's even a big orange doughnut on the cover . . . hmmm . . . go figure. . . ). right now I'm rereading "sailing around the world alone" by joshua slocum.
movies: also difficult. wings of desire, brazil, down by law, harold and maude, repo man, lord of the rings.
art: joseph beuys, ernst haeckel, ray johnson, tim hawkinson, fluxus in general.
What are you working on these days?
i've been doing a lot of drawing lately. i find myself kind of going back to my roots in scientific illustration. not that the renderings are technical at all (though they are often based in organic forms), but they're somewhat obsessive in the way that I used to feel obsessed when stippling with a rapidograph. i've begun to re-explore the basics. . . light, shadow, color, form. things i put on the back burner for awhile.
two of my current projects:
i'm working on editing and creating a soundtrack for some black and while 8mm film i shot during a residency on the coast of maine during the summer of 2004. these beautiful jellyfish were being washed in by the wind and tide, and i caught them tumbling and turning, getting stranded in tidepools filled with undulating seaweed. it's kind of the ultimate "choose determinism" epic.
the other project i want to get underway soon is having a suit of sailboat sails made out of sonic fabric. that would just be the ultimate use of the material for me. . . sail-as-prayer flag. . .
Besides (or in addition to) your art, would you say that you have what people would think of as a more traditional spiritual practice? Meaning, do you have experience with any sort of meditation, or other more formal discipline?
yes, i do. though i've always had a really hard time picking just one and putting a label on it. i guess for me it's the same as the art supply dilemma. . . i just never know exactly which tools i'm going to need. i've studied a certain derivative of peruvian shamanism quite a bit, and the practice involves a very elegant healing altar that, for me, works "across platforms", in the sense that it serves as a jumping-off point, an interface, for connecting with "subtle realities", or the subconscious or superconscious or whatever you want to call it. it's a meditation turbobooster. my "mesa" has seven tibetan offering bowls on it, in addition to other icons that have meaning to me, from quantum physics to christianity. all that said, i've been on several buddhist retreats, and i'm a devoted yoga practitioner. i don't know quite where i'd be without any of these things.
formulating this hodgepodge hasn't been easy, however. i was raised with a certain skepticism of organized religion. then i studied science as an undergrad, where, again, spirituality is not exactly emphasized. but i'd get dizzy spells in biochemistry, overwhelmed by the complexity and sheer unlikelihood of the krebs cycle. but the word "mystical experience" didn't exist in my vocabulary. i didn't know what was happening to me. but it certainly started me on a quest. . .
or maybe i'd been on it all along.
it turns out that i DID grow up with a very profound spiritual practice. i'd been indoctrinated into a very organized and formal tradition. only it certainly wasn't called that. . . and i had no idea at the time. . .
sailboat racing. it's an intense and elegant form of meditation and nature worship unto itself. and a perfect metaphor for the "CHOOSE DETERMINISM" philosophy. every late spring, summer, and early fall weekend day of my childhood began with a check of the wind and weather, followed by preparing and donning the appropriate vestments. then, the communion, or "skipper's meeting" as it is otherwise known, involving a gathering of the devotees around coffee and doughnuts for a discussion of the layout of the day's course (always a series of triangles. . . ), as determined by the elements. then, a horn blast to prepare the attendees for the deeper level of awareness that will soon be necessary. all idle talk amongst the crew ceases, as concentration shifts to the shape and color of the ripples on the water, the trim of the sails, the feel of air on skin.
another blast to indicate that the ritual is about to begin. then BANG. sacred space has been entered. time slips away. there is only the moment, complete concentration on the senses and the making of constant small adjustments in relation to the forces of nature. it's a dance, a beautiful game, a collaboration with nature herself.
and the sails. luminous glowing arrows pointing at the heavens like so many cathedral windows rising up out of the water.
tell-tails made of cassette tape inspired the sonic fabric, but a sail made from it, like a holy window, a giant thangka or prayer flag. . . well, maybe i could just quit making art after that.
'Alyce's Instant & Insulating Protective
and Connective Spray-on Felt'
Lastly: did you really invent (and patent) felt in a spray-can?? That's crazy-cool.
it's possible that i invented the idea, but i never quite got past gluing dryer lint to the lids of empty spray paint cans. the part about actually pressurizing it and making it come out that little hole just seemed too complicated.
RESOURCES
http://alycesantoro.com
http://sonicfabric.com
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DHARMA-BURGER ARCHIVE 
