Conversation with an orange tree

An Automatic Non-Interview with Gideon Tsang

A collaborative non-interview of sorts where I ask a random series of questions (loosely related to ‘creative voice’) while the non-interviewee is distractedly drawing without looking. Then the responses get reduced to a poem. Read more about the inspiration here. (tl;dr: Stay open to chance.)

The Full Non-Interview

Who are you? I am a human. What kind of human? The spiritual being having a human experience at this moment in time. I am a person who's learning to co-create with the universe. A male Chinese Canadian living in California. Former pastor. Artist, struggling artist. Someone who has courage and anxiety. Someone who's just been through a familial gauntlet. Someone who has a lot of life left, and at the core of me, I am love.

Why? Because. 

What lesson has your work taught you? Give up control. Stop judging. 

Tell me something you've created that you love. Two young human men. Love. Our current life in Los Angeles. I don't know if I love any of my art yet. 

Have you experienced any miracles, and if so, explain. I've experienced two miracles of life—my boys, miracles of love—you, and miracles of dying to oneself and being reborn. The miracle of that cactus garden at the botanical garden in Pasadena. I flew to Australia—it seems pretty miraculous. My father went his entire life without having a conversation with me, that also seems kind of miraculous. I don't know… we have an orange tree, pretty miraculous. Skunks and hummingbirds. Sun comes out every day. Lots of miracles. 

What makes life worth living? Discovery of life. What the fuck is this all for? And then: can I participate? Love. Being loved. Art. Martinis.

All right, one more question.

An incredible bookstore? Yvon Lambert, Arcana, Hauser & Wirth—those are my favorites.