I have been invited to take part in the 2012 Sustainatopia, taking place next month in Miami.  It’s a bit of an honor to be asked (blushing) and I am still pinching myself.  Sustainatopia is an impact conference that encourages people to really consider how social relationships between investing, finances, and environmental sustainability can become more collaborative, creating a global community that benefits economically from doing what is, essentially, the right thing.  Um, wow!  Doesn’t that sound lofty?

Honestly, their mission seemed somewhat intimidating on first glance.  If I accepted their invitation to exhibit my art, would I have to give up those sweeet leather Gucci loafers in favor of padding around in a pair of flax colored canvas Tom’s shoes?  Would it be contradictory for me to nosh on a big Porterhouse steak while I mulled it over?  I was worried that maybe I am not hard-core-organo-hippie enough to walk their walk.  I was giving myself a case of “over-analysis paralysis”.  But then it hit me.  It is exactly guys like me…I am the core audience, the target demographic for this way of looking at things.  Like any group that’s worth it’s weight in hemp, they aren’t trying to convert an army of rabid, militant followers.  Sustainatopia isn’t about writing legislation, pushing shame or passing judgment.  The force behind Sustainatopia is focused on generating ideas, presenting options and helping regular people think outside of the box to find their way to being better stewards of their community.  It’s a serious issue with a laid back approach.  I can do some seriously laid back!

But, it’s gotten me thinking: What am I doing today that I can be proud of?  As a son, father, employer and walker of this earth, what example do I give?  That isn’t just a question for art exhibitors or tree-huggers, I think it’s one that everyone could spend some time with.  For me, for today, my answer is that I am open.  There is likely no one perfect universal lifestyle, and I can accept that.  While I may not be ready, or even want to turn my world upside down to save endangered tigers, stop oil drilling or live “off of the grid”, I can certainly play around with incorporating different tactics and little tweaks.  I am open to exploring and making new choices and seeing where it leads me.  Experimenting doesn’t mean that I’m molly-bolted to any thing.  I am open to making my life less disposable.  What is the worst thing that could happen from me condensing errands or carpooling to events so that I drive a little less?  Would incorporating “Meatless Monday” into the at-home dinner menu hurt anything?  I don’t think that for me to associate and coexist with the spirit of Sustainatopia requires what I might perceive as a sacrifice.  A cleaner, less fettered life doesn’t have to be about all of the things that I feel compelled to give up.  The other side, and perhaps the more important one, is to consider what it is that I can take on.

I can install a rain barrel for watering my potted plants.  I can drink from the same glass all day.  I can walk to the post office, be comfortable with the thermostat just one degree higher.  I could even learn to reupholster a chair instead of buying a new one.  I could take responsibility for my health and quit smoking…oh, wait.  Checkmark, ‘cause I already did that!  There are so many things that I am capable of doing that won’t feel like deprivation, but could be a little piece of something far bigger than a mere contribution.  The whole, is the sum of it’s parts.  I aim to be a part.

“Loving your Mother” isn’t cheap. Painting a house with low VOC paint could crush the remodeling budget. It could take a builder years to recoup the monetary savings associated with installing solar cells. Eating fresh, locally grown food is an exercise in paycheck rationing. Flex-fuel cars are far more expensive than their contemporary gas-guzzler counterparts. And yet, the demand is high enough to support new retailers, products and industry changes. It turns out that money may be the one thing that no one seems to be passionate about holding on to and preserving. Maybe it’s the money that’s become so blasé and the guilt cost that’s driving our willingness to hemorrhage future savings in the name of saving the whales. As a person, a father, a business owner and an artist, I am stumped by the irony of this.

Being fascinated by “paper” currency, I have a deep appreciation for our American “green”. But as our economy moves to exchanges being made via bank wires, credit card swipes, smart phone scans and punching in pin numbers, I wonder what is going to happen to our bills over the next hundred years. Already, I hear plenty of pundits discussing the notion of the Federal Reserve no longer wasting its time and resources on circulating the dollar bill. The dollar bill! The very symbol of American capitalism! Can you imagine? I have been hearing talk about the Federal Mint allegedly giving the dollar coin the heave-ho. This sort of talk used to be reserved for the lowly penny. So what about that? We still have pennies, but the only thing they seem to be good for are SPLOST taxes, the little “give a penny, take a penny” dish at convenient store cash counters and craft projects. Fifty years ago a penny got you a fistful of candy, a bag of nails or a couple of new pencils. Twenty years ago, dollar bill used to be good for a cup of coffee, bus fare or tipping. Now a dollar bill will get you little more than dirty looks.

In the spirit of reusing and preserving the bills that have passed through thousands of hands for hundreds of years, I have been using images from world currency in my mixed media art images for several years now. Intricate block carved borders, memorialized historical likenesses, or portraits of local accomplishments have influenced the way I compose a piece. It is my belief that as technology continues to reduce documents and transactions to files in a system, there is going to suddenly be an abundance of our American green for the taking, and it will be useless. In an ironic twist, our Green will be fodder for the trash heaps or fuel for incinerators.

My installation for 2012 Sustanatopia will be my large-scale fancification of what reducing, reusing, repurposing and recycling looks like in my mind’s eye. What do I think happens? What do we owe one another when we have nothing left?

What does it look like when money fails? A lot of us now know what it feels like when money leaves us in the dust. This is now a global concern. As a kid, I remember the bliss of hoarding a kitty of more than $30 in $1 bills. I lay on my bed, only to throw them up at once and then have them rain back down on me, pimp style. What could have been a better dream come to life than have tens of bills falling down on you at once? Stripper, not being withstanding….this was about as good as it could get.

But here we are, in real time, in today time. I look at the news, at the papers, at the internet….how do we make it rain now, for real? What does currency look like in the world of bills? How can I make it rain again? How can I make it rain for my friends? How can I make the rain come down for the people walking down the street? We are wandering through a drought and need a little dampening.

The background here is that I have been constructing a shiny new gallery space because, you know, I don’t have anything else going on in my life, what with travel, the currency collection, Pound, kids, moving, art shows, oh and that company that I pour myself into daily.  Sigh.  Starting a new gallery is like having a new baby minus the swollen ankles and a gift registry.  True to myself, I have been wracking my mind over the perfect name.  You know from here ( http://stevewilliamsstudio.com/making-cheddar/my-name-is-roger-roger/ ) that I can really over-think a name.  But parents, back me up here.  The name: something that sounds creative, not crafty.  A name that is unique, but not weird.  Something that is easy to spell and can’t get mispronounced or nicknamed into something objectionable.  It’s a tall order, sure.  By far, my all-time favorite gallery by name is Haunch of Venison.  It’s the sort of name that is so absurd, that I am intrigued.  It’s so out there that I immediately am drawn to it and trust it to deliver a level of poetic sophistication and intellectual branding that would never be found in a place called, say,

The Artists’ Corner.  I want this new gallery baby to convey something similar.

I can’t help but believe that this gallery is going to be pivotal for me as an artist as well as feeding my entrepreneurial spirit.  I’ve been playing gallerist for close to twenty years now.  It never gets “old” per se, but I have had breaks along the way.  Being involved with other artists and dissecting their creative process always inspires my own work and even my personal life.  Already I am putting the wheels in motion to take my own work on the road in 2012 to Washington, D.C. and Berlin, where I will be in someone else’s gallery.  It’s a wonderful contrast to be both the displayer and the displayed.

But I tell you, I wore myself out with this naming business.  I wore my friends out and art-world colleagues, too with my fretting.  I didn’t want to just dial it in.  This gallery needs to perfectly embody the effort and love that made it be.  I wanted to offer something to the art community that showed how discerning I think they are.  The names boiled down to things like Roger Collective.  That one was accurate, but didn’t have soul.  Fangtooth Herring sounded cool, but in the end it seemed a bit rough.  Basel Rathbone rolled out, but it’s a name that may just be trying a bit too hard.  I really got comfortable with Rathbone Cup, which literally means a “cup of raw bones”, signifying the raw space to house/exhibit the art.  There were a half dozen others that made the cut, but also went to the wayside once the patently obvious knocked me upside my head.

So, without further ado, I present…drum roll, trumpet fanfare and ticker tape parade, please…Florida Mining.  Wha?  Florida?  Mining?  Yep.  And it’s located on Florida Mining Boulevard.  It was there the whole time.  A lot of people don’t know that Florida mines anything other than seashells, old men in tall black socks with sandals and sacks of citrus, but we do.  And now, atop a former gypsum mine, I’ll be excavating what I consider to be some of the finest, most forward and often atypical art this area has seen.

My new baby is anything but common.  To quote the late Patrick Swayze, “Nobody puts Baby in the corner!”  There will be no watercolor herons on the point, no acrylic lighthouses in the fog and most certainly no seagulls on seashells.  Florida Mining will always be creative and unique, never mispronounced or nicknamed.  Everyone, raise a glass and light a cigar…my new baby is here!

Living in Florida, I can spot a tourist against a local at forty paces, with one eye shut and both arms tied behind my back.  Every summer, throngs of strangers hog restaurant reservations, stagger around on the beaches and engage me in road chicken matches as they rubber-neck an egret or marvel at seeing a palm tree or a clump of saw grass.  This would be more easily overlooked if they bought art instead of ­­­­­­boxes with scallop shells hot glued all over them.  But my point is that the tourists stick out.  They are obvious and out of place.  That grates on my ever-lovin’ nerves.  I have always been more of a blend-in guy.  Not to be confused with being absorbed into the background; blending in is looking and feeling like you belong where you are.

 

During my recent vacay to Berlin, I was blending in.  And I could spot the American tourists there, too.  It was the white socks.  Before a shirt was lifted to reveal a money belt, before the nasal drone of “Can you say it in English?” was uttered, even before the stupefied look of bewilderment flashed across their face, I knew they weren’t from around there by the white socks.  Should I admit that I felt a bit smug, nay even a bit superior, that no one could look at my socks and know that I was just visiting?  No self-respecting European would ever wear white socks with anything other than athletic shoes.  Even then, there is a good chance they’ll stick with a pair of dark over-the-calf socks and some thick-soled orthopedic sandals.  (I know that much from living in Florida!)  But I have to wonder whether I, too, have a tell.  Is there something that gives me away?  And would that really be so bad?  I mean, the truth is that when I am anywhere but here, I am a tourist.  Maybe I should relax a bit and embrace it.  After all, tourists are travelers, journeymen and adventurers!  Tourists are the people who scrimp and save just so they can see a different slice of the world and expose themselves to new experiences.  I’m all for exposing myself.

Well, I am good and reentered inFlorida, but I am certainly not anywhere near close to being settled back in.  In fact, I am bringing some of that tourist spirit into my stateside life.  Being inGermanythis summer ignited something in me.  I came home feeling like I had found a place where I wanted to be both a tourist and a local.  For the first time in a long while, my adult life came into focus and I now know what it looks like.  I also am a realist and know that for the next while, the bulk of my life story is set against palm trees, egrets, saw grass and salt air.  I could sulk about not being where I geographically want to be, but let’s face it: sulking doesn’t win any beauty pageants.  And because I want the crown, I am going to wrap a glitzy satin sash around everything that I can.

My oldest daughter started college this week.  My youngest is in kindergarten.  Tracy Chapman crooned, “If not now, then when?”  When I have more time?  When I have more money?  When all the kids are out of the house?  Nope, nope and nope.  It’s now, and it’s perfect.  I have always been progressive with my artwork, the music I listen to and the clothes I like.  I know what works for me, what I want to be when I grow up and how it all looks.  I have decided to shed my house like a coat that no longer fits and open up the opportunity to design a space that keeps up with me and mine.  I have a new gallery with an aesthetic that I have built out to be everything I want it to be.  People, this is exciting, liberating and forward moving!  I am home and I am experiencing a new sort of wanderlust in my own backyard.  I think I’m going to celebrate by pulling on my best white socks, a pair of sandals and making a reservation for a fancy beachside dinner.  Care to join me?

If you are reading this blog, chances are you noticed my current obsession that is all over my website: money.  Yes, I do love it in a Montgomery Burns way, but I also love it for what it is: a simple carta, meticulously collaged with the symbols and words that make up the history of a place or event.  As we get further immersed in blurring the lines that divide cash, credit, country, and citizenship, physical money is changing and actually dwindling.  Europe has unified their money with the Euro.  Plenty of Americans would like to see the American penny discontinued…they call it useless.   It’s not even made out of copper anymore.  I’m not going to go all three-alarm here, but it’s not THAT far fetched that one day most of our transactions will be made with our cell phone, pin numbers or a sliver of plastic.  It’s convenient, but not nearly as sexy as the jingle of coins or the feel of a roll of bills.

Well, you know that “What I Did This Summer” essay due during the first week of school?  Mine is going to be about how I wrapped up a July get-away and work-related research into one.  In a few days I am off my beloved Berlin, Germany.  It’s not my first time visiting, of course, but it might be my first time going when I have an intellectual agenda.  Germany is kind of a weird place, socially.  “German” is the punch line to a joke.  When I think of Germany I think of that Saturday Night Live character skit from the Mike Myers era, “Sprockets”.  To refresh, it was about a German talk show host, Dieter, who was a minimalist.  He was cold and affected by disinterest.  But that was thirty years ago, when I was chasing fireflies and stilted Germans just couldn’t bring themselves to talk about the juiciest bits of their modern history.

Everything that I know about World War II and what happened in Germany in particular, has been from teacher lectures, text books, Holocaust documentaries, the History Channel and watching Schindler’s List a gillion times on cable.  What you don’t hear much about is what was going on in the minds of “regular” Germans.  And what happened after the fall and the big reveal?  Did they really not know what was happening under their noses?  Were they terrified by or turned on by Adolf Hitler?  In years past when I felt comfortable enough to play “ask a German” about their feelings, they would brush off the question as silly and suggest a slice of apfelstrudel to throw me off of the trail.

Do you know what is plastered all over Berlin right now?  Posters that say “Never Forget”.  And there are songs and art installations, too.  This August will mark 50 years since the Berlin Wall was constructed.  The Germans are fired up about it and I am ready to hear them as they start talking about life before, during and after occupation.  I am also looking forward to right a wrong.  Years ago, I was given some amazing German antiquities: military pins, political ribbons, government-issue billfolds, Nazi coins, Reichsmark and the like.  During a teenage fit of boredom one summer, I hot glued it all on a mirror that I later tossed.  Despite having converted to the Euro in 2002, old German Deutche Mark, Reich mark and Notgeld can still be found for collecting.  I intend on getting my hands some of their “old money” and bringing it home, where I can blow it up and really study everything in it.  I’m going to make it rain D-Marks!!!

German Bills have some of the most detailed artwork and diverse subject matter.  It’s a shame that the Mark is now obsolete and useless for circulation.  I’m not knocking the Euro, but it’s one of those things where you’re serving a very broad audience.  I’m not saying it isn’t special…It’s just not AS special.  During times of physical shortages of currency, German Burroughs were legally allowed to create, print and trade their own bills.  The depictions on them are unique and localized to that area.

Can you imagine what a dollar designed by a palm reader in Cassadega, Florida would look like?  Or how about something designed by Snookie and The Situation for the garden state of New Jersey?  It would be bulky and orange, for sure.  As my interest and exposure to currency art deepens and expands, and as the summers get longer, I have actually found myself glazing over thinking about the Republic of Steve.  It’s a place where I rule (duh!), no one complains out loud, pesters me for a puppy, makes unreasonable demands and everyone intuitively just knows how to behave.  The R.O.S. would need a currency.  I could hog the exclusive design rights, or make it a free form community effort. There’d definitely be a lot of colors.  Would it feature swoops and swirls, or repeating geometrics? Or maybe I’d have days of the week money, like days of the week panties.  It would also have to have a cool slang name.  Unfortunately, “buck” (my nickname given to me by my father) is already taken.  Foiled again.  Maybe I should call them “Rogers”.

But whom do I think I’m kidding here?  The money thing does play a role in decision making for just about everyone.  Contrary to what you may have heard, money is not the root of all evil.  Anyone can twist anything into something bad, just look at Westboro Baptist Church.  Most of us are just looking to buy our shelter, pay for our health, pick up groceries and afford some luxuries along the way.  Okay, a lot of luxuries, please.  Money may not actually buy the happiness, but is sure does open the door for possibilities.

What’s a man like me to do when I don’t want to compromise my tastes?  I always prefer quality to quantity, so I hunt when my bank account tells me “No”.  There’s always waiting for sales, but it’s not too imaginative.  In fact, it’s downright boring.  I’m pro-active, I need to be doing and searching.  Sometimes I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I know it when I find it.  There is such a visceral satisfaction from spotting a Madeline Weinrib rug on consignment, a pair of vintage gold and onyx Cartier cuff links at an estate sale or an Eames chair put to a curb.  I still pat myself on the back from my Alexander McQueen find at…Marshalls, of all places.  When your eyes are open and you maintain your focus, you will find that special something that makes your knees weak.

Back in the nineties a book came out called The Millionaire Next Door.  It was a best seller about everyday, ordinary millionaires.  The common thread was that most millionaires accumulate and preserve their wealth by living below their means and having a job that they love.  They avoid buying “status objects”.  Like Gucci loafers or a smart Versace jacket.  The most owned car by them is the Ford F-150, which they keep for years and years.  They live in modest houses, in modest neighborhoods and have a modest life.  It sounds fine in theory, but I’ll bet it’s ho-hum and droll.  Me?  I want to enjoy my life.  I want to be excited by it, not penny pinching in anticipation of what horrors may come.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying that everyone should spend with reckless abandon.  Well, unless they are buying from my studio.  Seriously though, it’s finding the balance and making smart decisions.  It’s waiting for what you really want and not filling in the spaces with cheap crap just to have something.

The tradition of getting a hand-me-down name did not pass me by.  Were my parents extending a legacy or simply lazy?  Either way, for better or worse, I am Roger Stephen Williams, II.  My parents just called me Stephen.  It’s simple and direct.  Nothing too objectionable rhymes with it.  Stephen isn’t associated with black marks in history.  Stephen isn’t the name of a superhero, a super villain or even a famous pet.  As a parent now, I know the value of finding an uncomplicated, unfettered name for your child.  But as a kid in the seventies, it must have seemed uninspired to me.

Roger is the name my father uses.  Even as a small boy, I was less a vision of budding, jacked up testosterone and more of an introspective and inquisitive sort.  Not in a weird paste eating kind of way, but such that I felt a bit…apart.  I liked to draw and figure out how things went together.  Words, colors, and sounds all had a pattern that I could whittle the day away thinking about.  I know, shocking revelation.  Like most boys, I looked up to my father.  I noticed that I wasn’t alone.  Have you met Roger Williams, the original?  He’s charismatic, confident and just has such a welcoming aura. People go ga-ga over him.  There was me, there was him.  How did we fit together?  I couldn’t figure that one out.  In kindergarten I made the bold transition to Roger, and I did this on my own.  Of course, it was a name that I could claim legitimately, which helped me decide on it.  Oh, it also didn’t hurt that I was also a huge fan of the Buck Rogers comics.  Bonus!

By the time I started fourth grade, I decided to end my tenure as Roger.  I split the difference between Stephen and Roger, settling on Steve.  I got to that age where I started itching to be independent.  At nine, I wanted to be my own man.  I couldn’t drive a car, get an anchor tattoo or move into my own sweet bachelor pad, so it was going to have to start with the name.

As a college student at Mercer University, I took my first real art class.  Growing up in the south, I felt like there was a collective frown for grown boys indulging in creative endeavors.  It was really liberating and exciting to open this door.  My first assignment was to assemble a shadow box that made a statement about me.  I jumped into it whole hog and really went for it.  On the day it was due, I had to get help transporting it from my dorm across the middle of the campus to the Arts building.  I painstakingly built the story of me inside of a carved up refrigerator box.  The rest of the class?  Those hacks had tiny, petite boxes to tell their story.  What I showed up with was cumbersome and…different from everyone else’s.  And I loved it.  I felt so proud that my statement was huge.  In that one day, I figured out what I was good at and felt passionate about.

Now, as for Steve?  Feeling comfortable with that didn’t come so quickly or easily.  Once I figured out that I could make my art my living, I started getting itchy again.  I had found my independence and my artistic voice.  Maybe I needed a name that was more dynamic.  Something with panache.  My dad called me Buck, a common southern nickname for juniors.  And it associated nicely with Buck Rogers.  But it wasn’t really for public consumption.  Then I got the gift of calm.  I figured out that I had an amazing life, warts and all.  Steve Williams is who I already was.  It isn’t exotic or lyrical.  There’s no gimmick in the name.  It just is.  Steve Williams is like a moniker from the Witness Relocation Program.  The possibilities for Steve are wide open.  Plus, it’s easy to spell and nothing too objectionable rhymes with it.