The following is a question that was just recently asked of Tree and is the same question that has been asked again and again since we began being presented by Ricco/Marresca at the art fairs in Basel Miami, Scope New York, and Art Chicago. It is always asked with a kind of incredulity.

Q: Can you define/explain the dynamic between you and Toc Fetch, is it collaboration, you seem to be working from some of the same images?

Yes. Toc and I are what might be call Empirical Perennial Philosophers (in Joseph Campbell's language) or Empirical Non-dualist or Zen Allegorist or whatever. Out of the way we experience life we have found a mutual allegory of Reality that we share and research through our individual works. It is a kind of intended schizophrenia that views the outer world while still living in Eden (or what we would call Lower Utopia). Our characters are archetypes found in the pantheon of inner awareness. The Superego Kids; Pope Joey or Pope Tricksie. The Exile of Mouse, The Exile of Wolf, The Sadhu King Holybean, Peter-in-the-Rock, The Exile of Manticore, Softdoor Scout Finnagain, Equus, PapaWolf, the host of character is endless. We leave it up to dream or inspiration as to who is to be actualized next (or who needs to be actualized next). We critique each other only as pure observation, such as "how do you read this," to see if what was intended is then present (the mind being the trickster that it is).

Now this will sound a bit goofy but the truth is; we make tribal art - we don't really own anything - much less that which arrives from the transcendent. We didn't intend this, it just happened out of love.

People have forgotten the transcendent power of art. Art created civilization (Göbeklitepe)! But here in the west art has been glorified as a product of the ego, as personal revelation, this couldn't be less true - art comes from beyond the personal from the transcendent whisper that is ever present to everyone (and every thing), and therefore there is really nothing personal about it. If the work has power and resonance it is only because, despite the artist ego, the transcendent has come through into the work. It is the ego that stands in the way between you and transcendence. Being conscious of this truth (along with meditation) allows us to be free from the tyranny of the mind. So that the images that come to us are not based on ideas out of mind (those are easily weeded), the images that come are transcendent guests - friends - that we develop on going relationships with. It is through respect that the relationships open outward into beauty, (respect that allows the image to be who it is and not just a thing in relation to us).

Toc and I share all of our friendships from both the inner and outer world. That is love. But when you attempt to possess and interpret an image with the mind you stop its growing dialogue and kill it. You kill it by your greed to own it, by owning it you no longer have "it," because the "it" is the transcendent coming through it, and what you have is cut off from its link to the transcendent Reality. The image is a friend that has come to teach you its life through your direct observation of it, to then be possessive of it, or jealous of it befriending your friends is not love. And here in Lower Utopia we are in love with love, and practice love on every thing.

"An image takes hold of me, faces me, feeds me, walks me, talks me, dreams me, wakes me, I say, 'I'm losing it' (it being me). And she says, 'Get out of the way!'" - Crow