The goal is not to make “art”, I simply engage in Process, and the Art is uncovered. The goal is to present an experience based on.. these strange patterns I see in reality. Subjective patterns of meaning always seem to shift in constant waves of change in our Multi-verse. What I try to do is create a Space, then organize elements of narrative-meaning into a cohesive story. A tiny piece of a whole craft-work. Multi Dimensional Rabbit Holes one could say. The goal is not to create a finished product, but spark an ongoing conversation surrounding an artifact, a legacy or a collective story. Historicity as Philip K Dick called it. I prefer to see the bulk of my work as random acts of poetry, strange magic and the creation of Space.
Lew Blink
Before you enter this space, pull back, breathe, let loose any notions, enter a trans-historical state and try to experience the poetry of Existing. For this experiment in Story telling we turn the “Biography” web-page on it’s head and enter the head of a Big Picture Narrator.
In the beginning was the Word, forged from symbolic efforts to convey Meaning into dense new formats for our Collective Human Cultures. We spoke to one another of our distinct reality and forged the future with words. Each generation discovers new Mediums and unique ways to express Words.
Lew Blink is a little strange or really strange depending on your particular tastes. Originally a Poet, Lew believes his mind works easier with poetic verse, saying the world is too vast and weird to say anything with a definitive authority. Vagueness, Romanticism, Contradiction and Magical thinking permeates the literature of this amateur writer. All of his work is available to the public for free and exists in many corners of the internet like any Gen-Xer, yet an underlying creative poetic output is always at work in the background of all the Art Lew dabbles in.
Like any wannabe teenage poet, Lew’s poetry was rough around the edges, but that isn’t the point, honestly who reads poetry these days anyways? One writes poetry to make sense of the world, to express feeling and spin out the madness of the subconscious mind. Poetry is Life. Lew claims the medium has a denser potential for meaning than paragraphs or sentences. So as one explores the Rabbit Holes laid in the digital spaces created by Lew, remember it is really just poetry, masquerading as Art.
Church of Flow
The Poetry of Lew Blink
Thankfully Lew branched out to other ways of telling a story, so few need be subjected to the madness of his subconscious, unfortunately the mad man is the center of this entire website, so we are not spared completely. With several entrances to the body of work, such as Dumpster Archeology, Medium.com, Science Fiction, Poetry, Youtube, Public Art, Insta and the Digital Zines. As these are rabbit holes and mutli-dimensional in nature, threads link like a web.
The bulk of Lew Blink’s work is largely tied into these social media efforts and a certain unique long form type of literary output. Short stories are common, with a slant towards science fiction, history or psychedelic topics. Strange articles exist in various digital locations that are hard to describe as they often get philosophical, personal and explore taboo topics.
In 2016, Dumpster Archeology was forged to showcase and expand the Multiverse of Stories Lew discovered in Dumpsters. 6 years later the rabbit holes seem to go on forever, with an impressive amount of short articles and web pages layered within the dumpsterarcheology.com multiverse. As the Project grew from digital to public works and Festival experiences reshaped the nature of the Art Itself, the layers of oddness grew like sediment on a river floor.
The physical art created by Lew includes Ancient Incubators, Festival theme camps, Art installations, the View from 2323 at Strange Folk Festival, Ripple of Existence markets and Set Designs for PRIME’S 24 hour play series. Paintings, Scrapbooks, and lots of photography exists of Dumpster Archaeology with a side branch of Historicity Artifact creation.
So much of Lew’s work exists for short periods, only to be remembered in photos and the mind’s of those who experience it directly. Often a carefully crafted display of Artifacts can be found intact, or finds it’s way into the hands of an appreciative soul. After all, what comes from the dumpster is free, and value is a subjective thing. 16 Reel to Reel tapes of the 1950’s era psychic are priceless, the master piece of a genius abstract painter, likely has a market value, like rare saxophones or a photos of a forgotten person, that has no value in economic terms.
This is the key to understanding Lew Blink’s Art work. Nothing is ever for sale, only a certain percentage makes sense, and one can get lost in the corridors of oddness, but that direct experience is the entire point. Emotional and Spiritual experiences are often had in the Stories, the Ancient Incubators, and Public displays. Profound wisdom can be accidentally found in words layered like poetry. There is a sense of Community in so much of Lew’s work, as the Collective Human mind is represented without the prejudice of disbelief. Thou are That
In 2012, Lew created the persona Deacon Lew to explore the psychedelic/internet realms. This directly lead to the creation of the Psychedelic Society of St Louis. After a stint as an Organizer, Advocate and Community leader, the project was complete and 12 Admins were tasked with the future of the Society. To say this era in Lew’s life was influential is an understatement. We are almost always so far out….in the strangeness, that the simplicity of language and directness spoken by Lew is the bridge to understanding the Heart of the matter.
If space creation is the center of much of Lew’s work, than the PSSL was a perfect outlet. 70 meetings and 3 years later, the high energy of Lew Blink was a force on the St Louis landscape with ripples still whispered to this day about it’s impact.
How do you describe a modern Creator? Artist is not enough of a word to encompass the scope. Writers and Artists often want to get paid, and Lew has a full time job with a union that will support him into retirement, so the effort is more akin to a hobby than profession. He openly admits to having no College Degree, and doesn’t write for Academia.
Lew’s writing, no matter the alias is pure madness, but often lands with enough poetic gusto to make an impression on the Reader. He claims the writer within him is only a small part and prefers working with Space Creation. Physical Space, Digital Space, Natural Space, Inner Space and of course Outer Space.
Lew Blink is at heart, a Space Creator and that takes whatever form or medium is needed to tell the Story, forge that Narrative. convey Meaning, and remind the Experiencer that the infinite potentials of the Multi-verse are not for the faint of heart, so one must tread carefully into the unknown. That Unknown is exactly where Lew Blink the Space Creator, likes to dwell.
Strange Articles…from the Vaults
