Monthly Conversations

Interviews with Social Artists, Uncommon Heroes

September 2, 2013

From the Editor

Richard Whittaker
Giving back. The wish to give back. The need for giving back. For each of the individuals featured in this issue, some version of that is at work. With Camille Seaman and James George it might be better framed as an urging for us to wake up up -- the house is burning. [more]

More Features

• Who Am I? And For What? James George
• Kindness Journey: A Conversation with Geoff Nedry
• Making Saint Misbehavin: An Interview with Michelle Esrick

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We All Belong to the Earth: A Conversation with Camille Seaman

He would stop at each tree and introduce me to the tree as if he were introducing me to a person. He would really have me look at the form of the tree and the way the branches were and the texture of the bark. He would have me hold it, and he would say, "Slow your breathing. Quiet your mind and listen. Listen to the tree." And literally you could hear it moving. You know? This huge, massive thing. You started to understand that this was a living thing.

Necessities -- A Conversation with Richard Berger

I propose that one attribute of the production of those makers we call artists, historically and culturally, constitutes a kind of prosthetic activity to address an unforgettable and irreconcilable absence. To forget would be to surrender to incompleteness, an untenable and intolerable state. This production, the work of the artist, is intended to, however imperfectly, reestablish completeness.