TO DIE FOR
A Treatise on Life and Death
PUBLISHED 2019 Amazon
Revised 2021
369 pages. paperback only
Note: copies ordered from Kinnebrew Studios are signed by the author.
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A long and wide-ranging conversation with Kinnebrew (there is no other kind) will likely visit the fields of ethics, anthropology, physics, theology industrial design, and of course art….One working definition of genius (Ed. he has been professionally certified) is the ability to jump out of the ruts of business-as-usual to make new and unexpected connections Kinnebrew is an eccentric genius, self-exiled from the hip artworld.
He and his work don’t make sense in the stereotypical views of the modern artist, he is neither obsessed bohemian nor egocentric aesthete, though he possesses something of each.
There may be uncounted other isolated others who also serve dual masters of intense personal drive and vision of art (and ideas) as a community service, but Kinnebrew is arguably among the most successful.
Not only does time change the context in which we see his art: Kinnebrew continues to change as well.
On one level he seems hardly to notice the variety of his output. He doesn’t think much about completed projects and less about the development of an oevre.
Selections from an extensive interview and essay on Joseph Kinnebrew.
By Chicago critic Michael F. Bulka
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Would you die for me?
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Why this book?
FORWARD
Art was the original expression of the Spirit. From the caves and other such places came the proclamation: “This is what I see;” “This is what I hear;” and again, “This is what I feel.”
Art is an intimate personal expression. In one sense it is indifferent to who you are or what you see, feel, hear and understand. On the other hand, art cannot exist apart from the sharing community. There is no humanity and no art without social relationship. Every art form is the tangible expression of a sensitively aware human being, seeking to communicate something felt to be important.
Here then is an eternal dilemma. My art is mine. It is genuine, it is valid. In religious terms, it is the “voice of God.” I will go on expressing it whether you see it or want it or not. But, if it doesn’t touch you, the glory of “life” – the glory of God – is to that degree diminished.
When the desire to please or to promote or to sell takes over, true art disappears. When the artist doesn’t care whether others respond, selfish isolation destroys the Spirit and invalidates the art.
Now a word about my perspective. I am not professionally involved in art. I am writing about the Spirit. Spirit is it – feeling awareness, capable of infinite development and expressing it.
Spirit is not a thing; it is not a part of the body; it is not an ethereal entity. It is a quality of the body, dependent on the body and not found apart from it. It is the dynamic of the senses – mind and body. Surely if there is any meaning to the term “a miraculous gift of God,” it is Spirit.
You and others will judge Joseph Kinnebrew’s art from your individual perspectives. I, on my part, will testify to his Spirit. I have known him since he was a young man. I have never known anyone more ecstatically appreciative of the miracle of life. He sees, hears, feels and understands with extraordinary intensity. He combines the spiritual quality with frantic compulsion to express himself – and express himself he does, extravagantly.
Duncan Littlefair, Ph.D
Note: Dr. Littlefair was a close friend and mentor of Kinnebrew’s for over 40 years.
Life is not about death; death is about life.
Preface
If you were given a choice or the opportunity to invent one, what would you be willing to die for? Your child, your spouse, your country, someone you did not know, yourself.
Your beliefs, defined them, all or maybe just some of them. Your deity of choice, maybe all or just some of them.
Maybe none.
And so, it goes but one thing for sure, you’re going to die. What is not so sure, or for most, is when, for what and/or why. If you don’t care one way or another, that probably is the most telling aspect we may ever know about you, that is if we care to know anything at all….
My project is to each day, at least once, ask myself what I am or would be willing to die for? Now that my wife has died my first answer was until recently, “I no longer know.” My next thought is, I think I should find out. Next time you hear someone say, “That’s to die for” or “That’s a killer” maybe we should ask them if they are sure. Saying “I’d die for a good steak” seems like life is cheap or … easy for me to say so let’s ask the steer who got slaughtered for it.
“Oh Suzie, your scalloped potatoes are just to die for.”
Recently it was reported a young man in Chicago was murdered because he would not give up his running shoes…. what price for a life, what value the running shoes?
To consider death is a discussion of life. 陰 陽 ying yang.
Interrelatedness, interconnectedness, how and why things are related. Black and white, the most severe of contrasts, all colors = white, no colors = black. Total light/total darkness, positive/negative. Humans prefer contrast for clarity especially when one element’s meaning or purpose has facets, some subtle and others quite blatant. Humans like reduction, “Get to the point.” “Just tell me the bottom line.” “I’ll die if you don’t tell me.”
Is it dying we fear most or the process of dying? Is the bottom-line death or is that just a subtotal?
The moments of death appear very short. Falling from a great height (aka jumping off a building) some studies suggest a person is dead six meters before they hit the ground, they never feel the impact. Drifting off in a sleep like state seems to be the most common death experience but medically verifiable or confirmed reports are basically non-existent no matter what people tell us about the NDE, aka “Near Death Experience.”
Death by violent means is not so much what we fear, it is the moments leading up to it that matter.
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