About "Come Together" and Me

I’m a lifelong distance runner. And I’m fortunate, in my early 70’s, to still be running 35 to 45 miles each week. So the idea of a running figure in each panel occurred to me next. As a non-artist, challenged to draw straight lines, I opted for stick figures in motion that could be scaled up with large stencils cut from Mylar sheets. The internet provided numerous stencil designer/manufacturers. In some cases I provided the artwork and ideas that would be scaled up to my specifications. And some of the elements in the mural were off the shelf stencils that fit my vision of what I wanted. I worked with 4 or 5 stencil companies who, for the most part, were a pleasure to work with.

Once the running stick figures were in place on all five panels I started thinking about what I wanted to express. I became intrigued with cephalopods 6 or 7 years ago after reading Peter Godfrey-Smith’s “Other Minds”. And, more recently, I’ve read “Being You” by Anil Seth and “The Feeling of Life Itself” by Christof Koch. These last two books describe the most current scientific research into consciousness, how it arises from organic neural systems, and how prevalent it may be in all organic systems. So the panel that I call “Cephalopod City” is simply a nod to organic consciousness.

The panel “Girls in Space” was inspired by my wife Mary, who also happens to be the love of my life, (along with our cat Milton!). She has spent almost 3 decades laser focused on scientific research, learning, and teaching with her colleagues and students. Mary has spent her entire academic career at ASU where, along with her research and teaching, she currently serves as the associate-chair of the psychology department at the College for Liberal Arts and Sciences. Similar to Suzanne Simard who wrote “In Search of the Mother Tree”, Mary is an example for women everywhere who accomplish by “doing” with little or no complaint, often on an uneven playing field. And the panel afforded me another opportunity to add elements representing matter, energy, and consciousness that are all part of our physical universe.

Lastly, the middle panel titled “Come Together” is a nod to our humanity and to all things organic. And it’s a special nod to Suzanne Simard who helped to enlighten me about the pervasiveness of consciousness. The “Tree of Life” is taken from Peter Jackson’s interpretation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”. It was worn on the vests and chest plates of the humans of Gondor in Middle Earth. The panel means simply, to me, be mindful of our physical universe.