The One You Feed
Ethan Hamby offers this account of his 2016 installation, The One You Feed:
In the canvas tent beyond Smuggler’s Notch I bonded with nature in a way I never have. Sometimes alone with 30 dogs: feeding, scooping poop, running tours, collecting firewood. I never felt more connected to the season, to the land, or to myself. The changing snow, the hardness of the trail, were markers of the ride to come. I observed life with intent. The dogs were the hardest working creatures I have ever seen; little husky mutts, pulling with every ounce of muscle- loving it. The joy of the run was euphoric. I could feel a shift within my spirit and my work to come.
In The One You Feed, I create an immersive experience that investigates my relationship to dog, nature, and creativity: The written word is projected as a visual art, a creative non-fiction, collecting remembered moments through language. The sound of Swedish Kulning, a piercing herding call, blends with howling huskies. Dogs projected on every wall. The smell of sweet golden straw evokes animal husbandry. The human-teeth-marked dog-dishes questions where the human/animal tale (or tail) begins or ends.
I hope this installation conveys some of the magic I felt when dogsledding. My gratitude for the dogs that were determined to drive me forward. They taught me that leading comes from the heart; that life is beautiful when you guzzle the fleeting moments: details in snowflakes, in coats of fur, in different shades of blue-ice eyes.
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.
One is Evil – It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is Good – It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:
“Which wolf wins?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
After Professor Eberhardy listened to Ethan Hamby’s final presentation in the Creative Nonfiction Writing Seminar, she asked, “What changed in your art based on our work in this class?”
Ethan responded:
“In the past, I used nonfiction writing as a response to my art. Now through this new approach to creative nonfiction writing, words inspired forms and objects. The story continues off the page and inhabits the spatial arrangement of the installation.The result is a holistic work of art that weaves all the creative disciplines into a single experience through layers of sound, symbols, and time.”
Ethan received the 2016 Liberal Arts Department Kathryn Coughlan Award for Outstanding Student in the field of Literature, Writing, or Film criticism. For his essay Protest Pots, he received the 2016 William Daley Award recognizing an excellent essay treating ceramics.