JC Hotchkiss is an off-center sort of creative being. He is more interested in process and inquiry than in shaping objects. Objects do (sometimes) result – along with events and (best of all) exploratory encounters with other creative beings. He is also a teacher of Zen, with a fifty-year meditation habit; and he seeks to braid this sort of spiritual inquiry with creative exploration, and mutual learning – while investigating possibilities for community.
Originally an image-maker, Chuck cultivated photographic processes for about forty years. Using those tools, he collaborated with performing artists – and followed his nose into the woods. But there has always been an interest in sound and movement and ceremony, and so in recent years his greatest energy has been invested in processes which can draw others into spontaneous collaborative experiments.
The line between “artists” and “audiences” is kept vague, and surprise is courted, along with uncertainty. These sorts of things are meant to be offerings: little rituals and signs which can bring us to some sort of awakening – to things we didn’t know we knew.
The work is tuned to the lower frequencies of perception. It asks you to slow down, lean in, spend more time, and keep coming back. It asks you to take a breath and to look again – to simply pay attention. Chuck thinks it is worthwhile to not (quite) know what one is doing; for all of us to be available to instinct and curiosity and chance.
Education & Training
Williams College: BA with a major in studio art
Goddard College: MA in aesthetic education
MIT Creative Photography Lab
Essex Photographic Workshop
Cambridge Buddhist Association: study with Maurine Stuart
San Francisco Zen Center: ten years of practice with several teachers & priest ordination
White Plum Asanga: dharma transmission with Shindo Jim Nowik
Contact:
243 Union Street
Loft #309
North Adams, MA 01247