Patrick Gorman Pettis' Blog

 The heart can be moved by virtually anything if it is aware of it. Easily we are surrounded by the most magnificent of dynamic beauty in our own bodies and back yards ranging from the sub-atomic to the planets and stars themselves. The trick is to simply become aware and acknowledge that beauty then just allow ourselves a moment to be moved by it. Admittedly I don't understand people who claim they're never curious, to me its impossible not to be interested if not distracted by one thing or another. I see the world differently I suppose, I'm just so fond of life, which in part is why I'm so fond of the saying  ' Totus res decorus' which is Latin for 'All things Beautiful'. I think life can be quite beautiful and I celebrate the quality of life, its so very brief and rare after all. Its easy to feel this way, we don't need millions of dollars to take a moment and be able to appreciate something attractive or well made. One of the most common qu...

The request was simple enough, ten people, only ten trace your hands and mail them in. One by one they began arriving. Like friends sharing the latest news or a personal secret. And every time a new set arrived I got excited like a little kid at a celebration. It amazes me how this simple act can be so intimate in its way, forming a relationship rather complex though silent. The promise of a beginning, an adventure of sorts and so much potential to grasp with each unique duo. Some were folded, I made no specification as to how I wanted them other than labeling the right hand with an 'R'. I am particularly fond of that letter but my reasons we're far more practical. I did this because depending on what kind of paper they use the image could bleed through and one would never be able to tell which is face up. The folds I don't mind and not wanting to complicate the project for my participants I just took them out myself. This formed no challenge at all. A simpl...

Time,what a strange and wonderful thing, omnipresent and given to us all freely "The Past Lives of Roland Arfly" 2012 and still simultaneously so very precious The way people speak about their bodies and time has always fascinated me. Because they address it as if they are a body that has a soul, and really this made very little sense to me at all even at a younger age. That would to me be like a horse having a wagon in a way. The mass majority of who we are is intangible, what makes us 'us' is so much more than the composition of arms and legs and teeth and hair, we are so much more and without it we are simply bio electrical machines.  Wouldnt it make more sense then, to accept that we are souls that in the grand scheme of all that is, was, and will be only for the moment have a body? Intelligent dynamic indestructible energy encapsulated within the most delicate of ways, a work of art in and of itself. I myself believe in a soul, but really we simply just...