Where art will take us
The depths and surprising directions of true art-making
I decided to classify art-making with “true” in this subtitle. My attempt here is to differentiate between art — that is also Art — that is made with a focus on craft, or on continuity, or on selling, and art that we create as a form of inquiry, with one foot on what we know and another on what is still in the dark.
It is in this line of work that I’ve been developing what I call “works in corporeality.” These works stand at the intersection of play and ritual. In most cases, these works mobilize a “playful faith,” trusting that we can resolve physical or deep emotional pain with simple actions that usually rely on visual creations on the body or on encounters with people who are willing to experiment with me.
Luckily, I documented the very first work I intentionally did like this here on this website:
Most of the time, the most willing people in my life are Helena and Ulysses. Last week, as I was dealing with a mysterious swelling and pain on my face, which started back in June and has been coming and going throughout the whole summer, I decided to go to the lake and undo a few works on unfired ceramics Helena and I had at home. Mine was a sun wheel based on Rudolf Steiner’s instructions, which I made more than twenty years ago in Brazil during an Anthroposophy certification course, and hers was a house and a hand that she did at the Soil Factory in the spring but didn’t want to finalize.
I did the work feverishly by the lake, and the children helped me with their endless play. I’m so grateful. I woke up the next day fully healed and have been that way ever since. There are many ways to deal with pain; may we figure them all out creatively. The music in the background is also Helena’s, one of the many improvisations she does with her ukulele.
Undoing. A work in corporeality. Ithaca, NY, USA. August 12, 2026.