DAAG: INTERVIEWS: EREZ SITZER

Interviews

The Directories of American Art Galleries

An Interview with

Erez Sitzer

by James Leonard-Amodeo

INTRODUCTION

In 1995 Erez Sitzer traveled into the Amazonian rainforest. Beneath its rich canopy, guided by native elders, Erez discovered a world of beauty and mystery, a world that would inspire his direction in life as an artist. He was given the name "Amazanga", meaning `spirit of the forest`, a word expressing for the indigenous people the complex intimations that coexist between people and plants, between dancing and dreams, between evolution and the vast skies above. It is these intimations that evoke the images and meaning in Erez`s work.

Erez creates his stunning images using earth-toned oil pastels, a rich medium that allows him to work with his hands. After the pastels are thickly layered across paper, Erez uses various self-taught drawing techniques -- including etching the pastels with sharp tools -- to shape the images into being. Because of the rough, contoured texture of the paper used, the drawing process initially resembles the ancient practice of drawing onto cave walls, whereby the natural surface helps to inspire the image. Over the years, Erez has refined his technique to bring a unique approach to drawing, using it to express a compelling vision of our relationship to each other and to the Earth.

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On your homepage you speak of meeting a "vegetalista", a sort of shaman of sorts, who gave you the name, "Amazanga". This is the name of your website. How much truth is there to the story you recount about your excursion into Ecuator and meeting the vegetalista? Might you have come up with the idea just for the fun of it?

That`s a fair question given that people probably do `make up` stuff, and maybe even profit from telling tall tales, but that wouldn`t really be my idea of fun.

But you are right, stories are always open to questioning, but I think one`s own experience never is. It doesn`t really matter what happened to me in the Amazon, and I don`t go into too much detail about it, except to impress upon people that it is the springboard from which my art arose. Ultimately, though, my art should be able to stand on its own.

As for my excursion to Ecuador: in 1995 an earthquake devastated the area where I live in Japan, but it made a journey to the Amazon possible. I had never been to such a place and felt compelled to go only because one day I found a magazine called Magical Blend at a bookstore in Kobe (never before and never since appearing at that bookstore!) and opened the zine to a page advertising a trip to the Amazon led by the author Terence McKenna. I had come across McKenna`s name for the first time several days earlier in a novel by my favorite author, Tom Robbins. I was in Hawaii for a few days prior to returning to Japan and on my last day there, just after seeing the name Terence McKenna, I saw it again on an advertisement for a weekend workshop featuring- Terence McKenna! That much coincidence lit sparks for me. Arriving in Japan, and then opening a magazine to the very page advertising a trip with McKenna, well I called my boss immediately and asked for another 3 weeks off to go to the Amazon to hang out with natives and drink magic potions. Not surprisingly my boss didn`t even bother to SAY no! He simply hung up. The following morning was the morning of the 1995 Kobe earthquake. My boss called and said, "Listen, you know that trip you want to take, well, you take as long as you need`

As for the name "Amazanga," on one level it was just a matter of convenience for our Indian hosts. Our names were difficult to pronounce, so the Indians gave us Indian names. But on another level, the names they gave us all fit us perfectly. Even in the West we talk about `christening` someone or something, and I think what we mean is that the actual name given is literally imbuing someone with purpose and definition. Amazanga means `Spirit of the Earth`, and I have in the years since my excursion tried to express that spirit.

Your name, also, is not, shall we say, "mainstream" American. What nationality does it originate from?

I was born in Israel and Erez is Hebrew for "cedar". I was named after the ancient cedar trees of Lebanon. Interestingly, the oldest cedar in the world is in the country where I live now, Japan. It is 5,800 years old. This tree predates almost everything we know. I made the 8-hour hike to see it. Sitting beneath it was like coming home! For many years when I was a child growing up in America, I was ashamed of my name; it was difficult to pronounce. Now I realize I couldn`t have been named more appropriately. Also, "Amazanga" translates into Japanese: AMA means nun, or holy mother; ZAN means mountain, and GA means `picture of``. So- picture of the holy female mountain. In other words, Spirit of the Earth! Since my trip to the Amazon I have witnessed seemingly disparate names, places and experiences coming together to show me both who I am and what I am supposed to do.

You mention growing up in America. Where, precisely?

I grew up in Houston, Texas

In the second to last paragraph of your homepage one gets the impression that what you are saying is that you've never been trained as an artist. Is this so?

When I came home from the Amazon I went straight to the town art store, bought the largest sheet of paper available, and for some unknown reason went straight for oil pastels. Prior to that moment I had never studied art, made art, or really even cared about art.

Part of my experience in the Amazon involved me sitting in a dream state staring at a holy figure, a man in front of me. He had me look at my hands and convinced me that my hands were meant to `create`. He pointed to a cave wall, and on it was the most beautiful picture I had ever seen. Beside that was another beautiful work of art, and one after another I was shown art so beautiful my heart felt like it was inflating just looking at these pictures. He convinced me that I was to return to Japan, quit my job and- `make art`. This `dream state` was so overwhelmingly real, so unique in my experience, that I had no doubts about doing this. So I came home, quit my job, and went to buy art supplies. So here I was, having quit my job, no longer having a visa to even stay in Japan, no income and basically broke, buying art supplies! If that`s not crazy, I don`t know what is.

I put my materials down on a table, pulled out the oil pastels and began rubbing them across the paper. And then the most horrible thing happened. The best way to describe it is this way: Imagine yourself on a boat looking at a shoreline. For a moment you decide to take a nap. You close your eyes, thinking, "okay, only for a moment." When you open your eyes again, hours have gone by, you look up but there`s no shoreline. You stand up and look around seeing nothing but ocean in every direction, and slowly, very slowly, it begins to dawn on you that you are horribly, horribly lost. That`s what I felt as I slowly realized I had quit my job, had no visa, no money, knew nothing about art, and here I was trying to draw a picture. In other words, I was horribly, horribly lost! The frustration was so great that I grabbed a chopstick and struck the paper surface. That scratch was the beginning of what would be my first picture ORIGINS. The second picture, FIRST DANCE, was completely carved using the same chopstick. Since then I have developed many techniques for drawing, all arising out of seemingly meaningless frustrations.

The day after ORIGINS began, I went to my shakuhachi flute lesson to tell my teacher I would have to quit his lessons because I now couldn`t stay in Japan for lack of a visa, and he told me that just recently he had heard that he could sponsor his foreign students on a culture visa That night I went to teach an English class at a company; I had been teaching for the Berlitz school, and let them know that I would have to stop teaching them cause I was quitting my job. They said they would gladly hire me privately because they loved my lessons. And so the man I had envisioned had told the truth. He had said everything will unfold and work out, and it did, almost immediately.

Wow! A mystical experience or what! Would you say your mind went into a sort of different dimension where the powers of the unknown guided you?

I think we`re surrounded by numerous other dimensions, and I also think that we have an immense capacity for entering into them. It`s just that we`re not taught to expect this. It`s like having a TV that can capture 500 channels, but only watching one. Then one day we learn how to access the other stations and it`s like, wow! I can`t believe I didn`t know this! As for being guided, the most wonderful experience of my life was the moment I first realized the extent to which I am always being guided, guided by forces concerned with my ultimate well-being and development.

What you relate sounds extraordinary and brings to mind that sort of trance the vodoo people engage in a trance that is aimless. You use the word "guided". If we were "guided" wouldn't this entail a wisdom in the one that is guiding and a cognitive perception on our part to see and realize that we were being guided? I mean, a blindman cannot lead another blindman to the fountain.

Unless the blind can see in other ways. The most interesting thing about ayauasca and other similar sacred plants used by shamans is that they not only infuse people with a sense of deep knowing but also provide visionsfull color visions. Yet we have all learned from basic college courses that the ability to view color depends on there being a source of light present. So here are shamans in the dark of night, with eyes closed, taking journeys in full, fantastic colorsbut where is the source of light that allows them to see their visions? My point is that the human brain is an extraordinary universe unto itself, and the ultimate `guidance` may actually come not from anyone or anything outside ourselves, but from some higher aspect of our own self. It may be that we ourselves are the very `fountains` that we ourselves lead ourselves to. That may sound wordy, but that`s the problem when using language to describe the ineffable, which is why you never see shamans doing book tours.

Also, my own experience with trance has always been imbued with the repeated realization that it is anything but `aimless`

So, how are you supporting yourself these days? Are you selling your art in Japan and the world or are you still teaching English?

Teaching helps to pay for all the oil pastels I use. Since I created the reproductions of my originals, though, I have sold about 70 prints and that has helped tremendously to assure that I keep working. I have noticed, though, that the universe is more interested in making sure I make art than in helping me become wealthy. And so financially I am always ok even though at times I am almost sure I will find myself in the poor house come morning.

What if somebody in America ordered one of your paintings. What kind of shipping mode would you use. How much would transportation cost? How much guarantee do you give that the buyer will receive his order intact and within a reasonable amount of time?

Prints usually arrive in 2 to 3 weeks, if not sooner. They are well packed in strong tubes. I charge $60 for shipping overseas and $20 for the tube. My prints are completely guaranteed.

Your paintings tell a story. Tell us about the "story" you wish to convey through your art.

My story is about WHAT we are. WHO we are changes all the time, almost daily. But there are qualities about us that are so true that were you to meet someone from many millennia past, or from many millennia hence, these qualities would be recognizable regardless of language or culture. But to find these qualities you have to search in a milieu outside civilization and all its trappings. Civilization is a mere 5,000 years old. We have been on this planet for 400,000 years. Cities, I think, have been an unsuccessful experiment. Compared to the people I met in the rain forest, city people are incredibly joyless, self-questioning, lost. Don`t get me wrong, my art has no social agenda; we can`t go back to the forest, but I brought something back from the forest, a story to tell visually, and perhaps this story can address why so many of us feel joyless, self-questioning, lost.

I can relate to what you're saying about big city dwellers. Personally I feel the city is a place for the body and the country a place for the soul. Why anyone would want to continue living in a big, bustling city is beyond me. However, billions do. How do you explain that millions of people feel joyless, self-questioning, and lost? How can your story address this very complex issue?

Basically, we model our lives on what`s around us. If you live in a city your life gets modeled on things like traffic. In nature, living models surround us that nurture our well-being. My story is about becoming aware of this fact. Once aware, well, then one can act in a new way. Once you remember your sacred connection to nature and spirit, well, you can run with that, and for me personally, it has taken me to places I never even dreamed of reaching.

But even telling your story to city dwellers would NOT have much of an effect since they continue being surrounded by brick and mortar, and not with nature. So, how could anything you say have any effect on city dwellers? Wouldn't they have to move away into a rural area in order to benefit more fully from their connection to nature?

My experience with knowledge is that it is oftentimes `counter-intuitive`so here goes- your life, my life, and the lives of people everywhere, are perfect expressions of who we are right now at this moment. If you find yourself surrounded by `brick and mortar`, then that is the world you are being challenged by in order to develop as a person. It would make no sense to suddenly find yourself in a pristine forest setting unless you went through all the effort to actually get yourself there. The point of my telling my story is to wake people upI do this in the gentlest of ways, by appealing to their sense of beauty and their longing for meaning. At that point, their own innate intelligence can take over. As an example, several years ago I was introduced to the raw food lifestyle, the idea that anything cooked was not only unhealthy for my body but in fact is the cause of all human disease states. The books I read on the subject were basically a slap in the face to everything I knew about health and proper eating. Nevertheless, the books spoke to a deeper part of myself that somehow knew that this information was correct. So I followed the ideas and now, years later, I eat raw food only, am healthier and more fit than I have ever been, do not get sick, nor ever feel tired, or ever have any kind of aches or pains. Each day my mind attains ever higher states of clarity and my body ever purer states of well-being. I use this only as an analogy, not as a clarion call for anyone to change their lives. Change always begins inside us as a kind of `waking up`, then the journey begins. If someone is stuck in a city feeling miserable about it, do not doubt that that too is a necessary part of the overall journey. Again, I think it really is all about waking up, and in my own life, I find myself waking up repeatedly.

An interesting section of your website is the "Presentation". When we click on this we are taken to a page that reads, "Echoes Of The Archaic: An Eloquent Exploration Of Human Origins". I couldn't quite figure out what you meant by all of this. Is this a workshop you give?

Echoes of the Archaic is my way of helping others make the journey -- a journey into states that in our daily lives we have either forgotten or have no time for. We can`t all go to far-flung places or sit with shamans, but we don`t need to. Art and music can inspire states that most of us have never experienced, much less been told even exist. Using my artwork and stories, and potent ambient music, I guide people through my story, helping them conceive the story as their own. And if I am successful, then the experience becomes very transformative for the audience. I have done a couple dozen of these presentations and always the event has been tremendously healing.

So, you're saying that your "Presentations" are something of a healing remedy to those who attend. Why, I wonder, are you taking this personal responsibility to be a sort of modern-day Shaman?

I am not a shaman. Shamans are men and women chosen by God to be healers for a community. I am an artist, and I think the role of the artist is simply to show us things we might not otherwise see. Hopefully what I have to show uplifts the spirit and breathes beauty into our lives. If so, well, then that naturally will have a healing quality. As for why I do this, well, alI I can say is that it`s my life. Well, actually it`s more than that- it`s a love affair. In our short lives, I think we can have a love affair with almost anything. I am having a love affair with art.

Isn't Fantasy Art the ultimate in showing people what they might not otherwise see? Science Fiction certainly is, especially when it is reasonable and acceptable to the reason. Star Trek comes to mind. Would you say your art could be classified in the "Fantasy" genre?

The best word I have come across to describe art like my own is probably `visionary`. The word `fantasy` feels somewhat weighed down by conceptions and maybe even misconceptions. But `visionary` is simply that- visions! An artist is saying- come! come see! Fantasy, at least for me, should happen after one comes and sees the visions an artist offers. I think what I am saying is- if an artist`s visions are good ones, then naturally people can use those visions to then have fantasies.

Your painting technique is quite unique and i've never heard of any artist using pastels as you do. Can you briefly describe to us your technique and how you came across it?

You`re right, and most people who see my originals are overwhelmed by the technique. Oil pastels are generally used for simple drawing or sketching, but my technique also reflects many of my themes. I use oil pastels as the original aboriginal artists might have used colored clay and resin. I use my hands, I rub, I smear, I carve away, I etch, slowly, slowly creating images like we might have had we nothing but rock surfaces and resin to work with. My technique is time consuming. I average 10 hours a day, every day, and it still takes several months to complete a work. Basically I haven`t had to work through other people`s filters and so I just naturally created a very unique way of expressing myself.

And you've never had art training before, right?

No formal training, but every day I spend about 10 hours with the pastels and I feel like I am always learning new things.

The way you apply yourself reminds me very much of Van Gogh. He applied very thick coats and sometimes rubbed so hard on his support that he'd pierce a hole through it. That's how intense he was. Do you think Van Gogh may have been experiencing something like you do when painting?

Funny you should say this because I actually `worked into` my picture FIRST DANCE, rubbing so hard that actual layers of the paper came off. I think what happens is that, given the rubbing technique and the long periods of time spent staring at the image, the paper surface becomes something like a lake surface for me, a crystal ball, a portal; I stare so deeply into the image that at times I just want to rip through the picture itself, as if the picture was only a veil and I could pierce through it and enter into the world I`m bringing into being. But this was at the beginning of my efforts. Now my touch is much more delicate and the intensity of feeling comes from standing back and simply witnessing the image itself.

Where is your current studio situated?

I live right behind Himeji castle in Japan.

How old are you?

I am 38 years old.

Have you got any plans to return to South America or to the USA? What's in store for the future?

I have never succeeded in sketching a picture. I have tried, but each time the picture sort of laughs at me by confounding my efforts. The same thing happens when I try to sketch my life or imagine my future. Of course I would love to visit all the rainforests of the world. I would love to offer my presentations to many people. I would love many things. What Art has taught me most is that just this love is enough to make all the right things happen.

Erez Sitzer's website: www.amazanga.com

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