Burning Man or Bust?

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Mikey and I met through the New York City Burning Man (BM) community. BM is an interesting umbrella under which a motley crew of extremes gather, each drawn to radical self expression and self reliance and a autonomous zone free of materialism, branding and money and of course many come for magic. Burning Man is 9 mile city of 50,000 (as of this year) running on a gift economy. It is evidence of something important.

How do a conceptual artist and wall street IT geek meet if not for something as odd as this? When we met Mikey was wearing a santa suit and I was dressed as Ms. Klaus. The next time we met I was in a broken heart costume and he was a giant band-aid. And yes he did say, "are you a broken heart? I am a band-aid!" As you can see this was meant to be.

This year marks a first, Burning Man is at full capacity - sold out. I wont get into what that could mean. We attended BM only once since our move to NM. It is hard to leave one desert where you build to go to another and build and call the shift a get away. This year, while many make the pilgrimage to the desert I'll be attending an intimate gathering to explore the possibilities offered up to our generation.

New Lebanon, NY -- For the first time ever, Burning Man, the annual arts event in the Nevada desert, is sold out, with more than 50,000 attendees. What is an alternative for those who do not have a Burning Man pass? In the Northeast it is Vanishing Art: An Intimate Festival of What May Be hosted by Seven Pillars House of Wisdom Aug. 24 – 28 in New Lebanon, NY.

The Vanishing Art Festival will explore what life could look like if we return to the deepest, most spiritual dimensions of art as practice and experience. Each day of the festival Peter will perform a work of "vanishing art", one for each of the four alchemical elements: earth, air, fire and water, involving all participants in a symbolic and artistic act.

There will also be performances, artist interviews and talks, meditations on art, social and music lounges, large group conversations and small group discussion salons. In contrast to Burning Man, this festival is intentionally being kept small, no more than 100 people in total, to allow deep connections between participants, between participants and art, and ultimately between all that exists and the natural world.

An eclectic group of artists plan to attend including Carolee Schneemann, the famous multidisciplinary artist who focuses on art as it relates to the body, sexuality and gender; Phong Bui, an installation artist and the influential editor of the Brooklyn Rail; Robert Kelly, the poet and professor at Bard College who has published over 50 books; Fred Johnson, an acclaimed jazz musician and performer; Syrian-born Bisan Toron, a vocal improviser; Dorothea Rockburne, an abstract painter inspired by mathematics and astronomy; Drew Dellinger, a poet who performs and speaks on themes of cosmology, ecology and compassion; and Wendy Tremayne, an activist, writer and performance artist who offers remedies for materialism.

Other participants include David Levi Strauss, Raymond Foye, Sterrett Smith, Charles Stein, Robin Becker, Yuval Ron, Yakov Rabinovich, Meryl Gross, Charlotte Mandell, George Quasha, Susan Quasha and Pir Zia Inayat-Khan.

Bios for all artists can be found at the Vanishing Art Site

The Vanishing Art Festival will be held at the magical and mysterious Abode of the Message, a Sufi retreat center and community located on the outskirts of the Berkshire Mountains, in Columbia County, NY

(picture Burning Man 2001)