Indigene - an artist monograph

Indigene

“Bloom,” video loop and film stills on aluminum.

Copyright, 2023.

“Welcome,” The word welcome in Arabic, digitally manipulated photograph. 2008.

Preface:

When I use the term indigene, it is to assert my right to belong to the human race and this planet, to assert all of our rights to belong regardless of ethnic origin. No one is alien nor somehow less deserving. Even the stateless are firmly rooted on our planet. We all belong, for the simple fact that we exist.

I do not use the term to usurp nor undermine the great peoples of indigenous cultures on Turtle Island and elsewhere. I suspect they will be the ones to save us from ourselves, the ones who will lead us forward as the planet descends into climate chaos.

God knows, we will need guides.

Self-Portrait as AI, mixed media, 2023.

Being AI is All the rage now.

You can spend all your time painting, playing music and reading books.

1. Here we are We are all indigenous to the planet.

We all belong here.

Many of us cannot pinpoint exactly where we are from on this planet. It doesn’t make us any less deserving to exist.

Some people think that this multiculturalism is a new phenomenon, an “American experiment.”

Maybe it is new, at least to the extent it is today, but some people forget.

They forget how long and large human history is, an insurmountable chasm of time. We dig deep in the earth, foraging the rubble of empires long lost, trying to decipher forgotten truths. Of course, this does provide us with some of the story, but maybe not all.

In the collective Western consciousness, forgotten are the Roman ruins scattered across the Middle East.

Forgotten is the 800 year old Moor empire in Andalucia, now modern day, Spain. (In terms of time, that’s two United States’.) Cleopatra, the last ruling Egyptian Queen, is a descendent of the Greek, Alexander the Great.

Ancient Persia, modern day Iran had highways to Africa, Asia and Europe.

We’ve never existed in neat and tidy factions of culture.

We’ve been appropriating from each other since the dawn of human existence because it is our nature to share, learn and grow and yes, sometimes, steal. We’ve been sharing gods and goods for millennia.

How we arrived at this point in time, I suspect is a far more intricate and interesting of a story than the one we are told and the one we have forgotten.

But here we all are, plodding along on a spinning planet that is flying through outer space at dizzying speeds wondering why we exist.

The existentialists tell us to create meaning in the face of meaninglessness. Religious folk tell us we are being tested, that we will be divided into two groups, good people and bad people. New Agers think we are just having experiences that will make more sense once we are dead. The Buddhists tell us to not worry so much, to just live in the moment. Some of us don’t bother contemplating the whys. They are happily consumed with the details of daily life. Others still, are captivated by amassing wealth while others only think about fame.

It’s all very perplexing and if we were honest, a little absurd.

The fear of death is called Thanatophobia. It is one fear that we all share.

I have wondered often why this collective fear has not become a unifying factor in our species. Why does not our fear of death prompt a supreme empathy for each other in life? Why do we kill each other? Why do we kill the planet, that wonderful organism that supports life, our life?

Strangely, according to Sigmund Freud, it is actually the fear of death that causes this aggression. He calls it the death drive or in German, Todestrieb. It is the drive toward death and destruction, often expressed through behaviors such as aggression, repetition compulsion, and self-destructiveness.

I think it is nihilism, an utter rage that one will die, which in turn gives birth to an impulse to destroy. The ultimate, “If I can’t have it, no one will” mentality. It is a supremely selfish act, the ultimate temper tantrum.

We who exist today, in this moment, have been told time and time again, that the planet cannot support human life for much longer as we are living now. It’s as simple as this. We must change our collective ways, our systems of society if we want human life to continue after our own individual life has ceased. I wonder if it not a lack of imagination that causes us to persist in this trajectory towards annihilation. Perhaps, it is simply a matter of us not being able to comprehend not just our own state of non-existence (at least in this form) but also our absolute inability to comprehend a humanless earth.

What is the point of wealth if there is no one to inherit?

What is the point of fame, if there is no one left to remember?

What is the point of killing others for land that will in due time become uninhabitable?

What is the point of killing others for resources that only hasten our species demise?

It is insane.

We are living in a time of collective psychosis. A collective death drive.

2. Of Circumstance My name is Rula Jones.

My first name is from Syria and they tell me it is also the name of a small tribe that once existed in ancient times. I’m not totally convinced.

It is also Latin for one who leads, which is a lot of pressure, frankly.

I received this name from my Mother, Dalal, a former bohemian of Beirut, …”when Beirut was the Paris of the Middle east before the civil war.”

She is wholly Americanized now, in her own way. A retired English language professor.

My last name is Jones. So common, both meaningless and meaningful, it carries the weight of colonialism and slavery imported from Wales. I received this name from my Father, a cowboy from Texas who tried to make it big by traveling the world.

Sometimes, people find this combination extremely amusing.

“How did that happen?” I am often asked, like I’m an anomaly, some bizarre creature to which I must immediately owe them an explanation. I’m very good now at reciting my past. I can do it in less than twenty seconds.

When I was younger, I would mutter, pause and stumble. I was unsure myself.

I didn’t even know what “our,” as in my nuclear family, official religion was, until 4th grade.

During a ride to school, I had accidentally let slip to my friend that Santa Clause was not real and my friend’s Mother became furious at me and shouted, “You wouldn’t know. I know what you are!”

Later, I asked my Mother “what we were” and she explained that we are Muslim. I asked her what that was and she just replied, “It’s too complicated to explain.” I never rode to school with my friend’s Mother again.

How was I to have known? We celebrated Christmas (minus the religion part) and no one ever mentioned God, nor did we ever go to a place of worship. I never did anything Muslim-like either, except receive money and clothes and good food on something my Mother would admonish was “the feast!,” as if I were supposed to intrinsically know what the feast was all about.

It is exceedingly easy to convert to Islam. I’m unconvinced my father, who grew up loosely Baptist, in the wilds of Texas, was serious in his conversion. I think he just wanted to marry my Mom and would do anything to make that happen.

I once asked my father later on,“Which God is right?” and he replied, “either none or all,” which is very confusing for a kid, but which upon reexamination as an adult, I view as wise and redemptive.

I must admit, considering the events of the past few decades, it has indeed been interesting to be from two cultures, to put it very, very simply, “at odds.”

During the first Iraq war, I was in 6th grade. At lunch, a boy sitting across from me declared, “We are going to blow them up and send them back to their Allah.”

And I laughed.

Immense shame overcame me afterwards. I don’t know why I would laugh. He was talking about killing people who were not so different from my relatives in Syria, whom I love. I have been staunchly anti-war ever since and ever since there has always been war.

Confusion of culture comes quite naturally to me. When my husband, Anthony almost got into a car accident, I crossed myself and recited (as best I could) Bismillah al rahman al rahim, which means “In the name of God, most Gracious, most Compassionate,” but which I thought meant something like God help me!

In Arab culture they are always talking about God. It’s God this, God that, God everything. I don’t think a sentence is ever completed without invoking God in some way. Alas, in American Christian culture, we are not supposed to take God’s name in vain. It is “blasphemy” to do so. Thus, I was always getting into trouble in Christian schools.

”God help me,” I’d say before starting a test.

“Thank you, God,” when I passed a test.

“OMG, just leave me alone,” when I got into trouble once again for “taking the lord’s name in vain.”

Not too long ago, my cat Sirius or Siri for short, died suddenly. I felt instinctively, we must wrap him in a clean, cotton cloth and bury him in our garden. And so we did, which was rather Muslim of me to do so. Then, I recited “the lord’s prayer,” which I learned from Episopalian Boarding school. Lastly, I lit a candle at night for his spirit.

Maybe all religions do the latter part.

Being multicultural is both liberating and isolating. People like me exist on the periphery of things, watching, both longing to be included and grateful that we are not.

how to live and die

Hold On. Let go.

Keep Going.

ART KID

Acrylic Painting, 4 ft x 4 ft. 2019.

3. Art Kid I hate performing. I hate the sweats and shaking hands preceding performance,, the absolute conviction I will forget all my lines and words while on stage. This was not mere stage fright, as I believed for years, but rather because I am an HSP or a Highly Sensitive Person.

HSP is not a personality disorder but rather a genetic disposition that affects approximately 20 percent of both the human and animal population. People with HSP are not necessarily shy nor do they suffer from low self-esteem.

They are, rather, keen observers. HSP’s experience reality so intensely they need significant time alone to process the massive information they acquired.

Thus, it was perhaps poor luck that in 1996, I received a full scholarship to attend Wagner College in Staten Island, for “voice” in the hopes or rather my Mother’s hopes that I become an Opera Star. I sang two Italian arias to a sour looking group of music professors and my fate was sealed.

All my peers were attending a nice, local college in Northern Virginia with the freedom of being undeclared while I had been marked for “greater things.” Not surprisingly after only one year, I transferred to Marymount Manhattan College, dropped music and immediately immersed myself in the visual art program.

I learned to revel in the anonymity of NYC. No one cared who I was and I found great freedom in this. I could observe millions of people a day innocuously from the sidelines. In such a dense place of humanity, one learns things. One learns about the depths of human cruelty and also kindness, and above all, the unrelenting, resilience of the human spirit.

Energy. The collective unconscious. Telepathy. All these things are real and living in NYC will leave you in little doubt about their veracity.

It was this whirlwind of human energy that interested me as a young artist. I wanted to contribute to it, interrupt it, and intervene in various ways.

One example of me doing exactly that is the following.

I printed one hundred copies of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, What One Can Invent. I rolled each print up into a tight scroll and wrapped them with beautiful tissue paper and ribbon and then left them on trains throughout the city.

The story begins:

‘There was once a young man who was studying to be a poet. He wanted to become one by Easter, and to marry, and to live by poetry. To write poems, he knew, only consists in being able to invent something; but he could not invent anything. He had been born too late– everything had been taken up before he came into the world, and everything had been written and told about.

"Happy people who were born a thousand years ago!" said he. "It was an easy matter for them to become immortal.

Happy even was he who was born a hundred years ago, for then there was still something about which a poem could be written. Now the world is written out, and what can I write poetry about?”

Then he studied till he became ill and wretched, the wretched man! No doctor could help him, but perhaps the wise woman could. She lived in the little house by the wayside, where the gate is that she opened for those who rode and drove. But she could do more than unlock the gate. She was wiser than the doctor who drives in his own carriage and pays tax for his rank.

"I must go to her," said the young man.’

Read the complete tale at:

Hans Christian Anderson holds a special place in my heart and imagination for although his stories for children faired extremely well while he was alive, he died thinking himself a failure because none of his works for adults did particularly well.

Another project I did was to create hand-sized clay heads, caricatures of human facial expressions. The surfaces were painted with bright, acrylic paint mixed with sand. They were comedic, odd and fun. I placed them in perfect cube boxes, and then wrapped them carefully in paper. The boxes were not signed but rather a card with my logo was placed inside. This logo was created from an ink drawing I called The Thinker. These boxes were then bicycle messengered to various art galleries in Chelsea. I never followed up on these special deliveries. I wonder to this day if they are still in someone’s possession or if they were simply thrown away.

Not knowing the reactions of the people who found the stories or of those who were given the heads was part of the art piece. It is analogous to how our behaviors can have an impact on the world in ways we are not aware of.

Diary of a Product They gave me a name and I felt myself become the name.

Proud of my logo, I was eager to leave the production line, impatiently waiting my turn in acquisition.

Eventually the supply to demand ratio dwindled and still, I had not consummated a transaction.

I had become, they explained, a

The line workers said not to hurry, that I had time, but I was too animated.

market risk. In short, I would not be

At the storehouse, they shined my component goods making sure my sticker stayed sticky and working parts in order.

As my product satisfaction was now negligible, servicing and an upgrade, was needed, and I was recalled to the production plant.

When I was accidentally scuffed up from a mis-handler, they restored me with an invasive apparatus.

After prodding me with instruments, they detected I had an internal flaw, the result of a human error.

I did well in the subsequent exhibitions, Comparable with the other merchandise.

Still, I felt awkward in my product display and slightly embarrassed of its flashy design.

My shelf-life passed on and I detected in their worried glances That I was not, perhaps, functioning up to expectation.

I tried harder to operate according to the manual issued with me but I felt that some of the commands were unwarranted.

good for their gross margin.

After deliberating they decided that repair was not worth their time as newer models were already being fabricated.

I showed the manufacturer my logo and explained It is my name.

He said, “Don’t Worry, It peels easily off.”

4. The Middle Path The Middle path is the path that is said to have given Buddha enlightenment. After years of extreme self-denial, he came upon this idea, the concept of moderation and it apparently worked.

The Middle Path has eluded me since I was born. I am more of an extremist.

Maybe this behavior began when I was a child in the U.K. My Mom would give me a couple of pounds for the shops and I would excitedly go round the stores and purchase candy and teen magazines. At that time candy was fairly cheap, 1p or 2p a piece, so with only a few pounds to my name I could purchase a hundred pieces of candy easily. I would eat them all in a day or two all while dreamily admiring pop stars in my new magazine. This would occur almost every weekend when I lived in London.

In the states, there was Cola and Fritos but as I grew older and more conscientious of what I looked like, I decided sugar was bad for me.

And then, I decided all food was bad for me and stopped eating.

I had to go to group therapy and learn how to eat normally again. Me and the others in group therapy would sit there mournfully looking at our salads, each of us wondering exactly how many calories were in the salad dressing.

It was an all or nothing mentality that extended beyond food to everything. I would either fail my classes or ace them. I was either in total love or utterly dismissive. I was either in perfect health or teetering on near death. Black or white. Bad or good. Extreme to extreme.

I have to watch myself as an adult. Re-parent myself. If I’m not perfect, or in a perfect situation, that’s fine. I acquiesce. I let it be. I try not to run if things become too difficult. I am too gifted at goodbyes, too ready to say fuck it.

These days I tell myself to sit and be with whatever difficult emotion I am experiencing. I try not to react immediately.

It is not easy.

It’s a work in progress.

I am no buddha.

WET a poem

in word & watercolor

And it seems a man would make an Ophelia of me too attempting to weigh me down with heartbreak to a watery death

But we are not the same Ophelia and I.

I am more Gaea than he could ever possibly imagine.

Bodies of water are not tombs but life’s blood and creatures of the deep are friendly natives of the womb whispering wisdom and resilience to my wet sorrow.

Free Sea Mare Liberum Digital Photography, 2022.

The free sea or Mare Liberum in latin refers to international waters or the parts of the ocean that are beyond the "territorial sea" of any country.

BUY ME A COFFEE