Bryant Holsenbeck Wilderness is not just the ‘preservation’ of the world, it is the world. . . . . Nature is ultimately in no way endangered; wilderness is. The wild is indestructible, but we might not see the wild. —Gary Snyder What does wild mean? Where is our wild life? We want wild life in our parks and open spaces, but not always in our back yard. We want nature to behave, to listen to us. We like to look at nature, are thrilled when we see animal tracks, or a deer in the woods, but are not happy at all with a mouse in the closet, hornets on the back porch, or squirrels in the bird feeder. A paradox of our modern life is, though our wild places are shrinking and our knowledge of the wild is usually a secondary, occasional thing, wildness is everywhere. Even as we shrink the size of our open spaces with more and more malls and developments, nature continues mutating and surprising us. This summer, I had the opportunity to be an Artist in Residence at The Headlands Center for the Arts, right across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. I saw deer everyday in the car park, in an open field. From my studio window I looked down at red tail hawks, circling in the fields below. A wild turkey liked to sit on the roof of my house, right outside my bedroom window. Quail ran through car headlights, and a bobcat or two ran the other way as I hiked around. This was a national park full of people and wildlife, co-habiting the same space. My installation, Wild Life, is an attempt to process some of my thoughts on what I have seen. I want to make my own wild space for animals and wild life. As in my previous work, I am using a pallet of recycled materials from my everyday life. My investigation is ongoing. As I write this, I see a hummingbird feasting on the flowers in the Rose of Sharon outside my window. This morning, I found a mouse nest in the shed where I store my art materials. I feel thankful for all the signs of wild life around me. Bryant Holsenbeck The depths of mind, the unconscious, are our inner wilderness areas, and that is where a bobcat is right now . . . the bobcat that roams from dream to dream. —Gary Snyder |