The world less directly travelled

You sound like you've been sailing through ideas as much as oceans, collecting fragments of advertisements, economies, politics, gold, fuel, identity, work, and belief, then dropping them all on the studio floor to see what remains when the noise settles.

If you're asking how we should spend this day in the studio, then perhaps not by chasing certainty.

Instead:

• Begin with a blank page.
• Write down three things you know and three things you only suspect.
• Take an object from your travels, or one that reminds you of them.
• Draw it, photograph it, record it, or write about it without explaining it.
• Let contradiction stay alive in the work. The cruise ship and the canal. Gold and water. Production and renewal. Movement and stillness.

You asked about belief. Perhaps belief is not a cash bonus waiting at the end of the journey. Perhaps it is the decision to continue the journey despite not having the bonus, the map, or the final destination.

And as for time: we spend it whether we believe in it or not. The studio is one of the few places where we can watch it becoming something else. A sketch. A recording. A sentence. A moment of attention.

So today, in studio:

Make one thing. Not for profit. Not for endorsement. Not for empire. Not even for certainty.

Make it because you are here, and this day is here, and that is enough reason to begin.