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Anado McLauchlin; We are all outlaws in the eyes of Amerika- Jefferson Airplane
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| Anado, a.k.a., James Rayburn McLauchlin, III, looks like Santa Claus after several highly revelatory LSD experiences during the Summer of Love, like a real world Saint Nick come to inhabit the (for him) ongoing glory days of San Miguel. Now in his 60s this child of the Sixties has long since turned his sack of presents inside out, his art works displaying the hallucinogenic core of existence which the survival-oriented mind, like Ronald Reagan, tries to convince us never really happened.
However jolly his now grandfatherly person, however childlike his playful creations, there is a lot of hard work behind the scenes. (Polar elves?) His technique (building chapels with mortar and empty blue green bottles, adorning punctilistically meticulous canvases, ornately tiling mandalas of color and myth worthy of an Indian temple's facade) is labor intensive, a discipline inspired in him one supposes from the Oklahoma soil where his ancestors are buried.
We first connected over a few bowls of my famous miso soup, followed up by its macrobiotic antithesis, Natura's exquisite ice creams (try the Salt.) Buoyed up by high blood sugar, full bellies and a recently emptied bottle of wine, we ended by singing "We Can Be Together" from Jefferson Airplane's album Volunteers (from which the title of this piece is taken) after he confessed that it was his personal anthem. I knew every word: listen on YouTube
We must begin here and now,
A new continent of earth and fire,
Up against the wall
Up against the wall, mf
Tear down the wall…
Won't you try?
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This interview was conducted in the shadow of the Parroquia, Anado's melodious voice punctuated every quarter hour by its bells. On his parting, trailed by several playfully mocking children whose minds he had just blown, it began to sun-shower. Coming out from under the trees I mounted my bicycle and rode towards home. The effortless downhill glide, the drops clinging to my dark glasses glistening in the rays fragmenting the view into a trippy whole, patterns of near symmetry always almost gelling, the glorious incongruity of sun and rain, om mane padme hum anado… - Dr Dave (Fialkoff) ***
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note: This is a literal transcription of a very casual conversation... Anado asks that you excuse his grammar... he blames it on his Oklahoma roots...
I wish I was a child. I am a child I guess. Yah, I've done a lot of things and had an enjoyable life and I think like anyone else we have to do what we have to do and I feel very fortunate that I get to do what I do.
I spent my early years in Oklahoma, I probably had some sort of learning disability and I got bored really easily. Whenever I was bored my mother used to say,” well, why don't you make something?” She encouraged me as a boy to create things, and even write poetry. I tried going to University but it was the 60s and it was crazy and I never went to class. I dropped out and went back to art school for a year at the University of Oklahoma. My teachers said I was too decorative, so I took that as a sign that they weren't going to teach me anything and so I moved to New York in '71.
Having been raised in Oklahoma in the so called safety of suburbia, I had no political consciousness except that I knew I didn't want to die and I didn't want to kill anybody. But I didn't ever think I'd have to go to the war. However, I did get drafted. By the grace of existence, I got drafted into the navy. I was one of two people to be drafted into the Navy during the Vietnam era and as they had made that mistake but they had to keep me because I had taken an oath.. Luckily I was stationed at Moffet Field, now where the Shoreline Amphitheater is, in Mountain View [near San Francisco] and it was the Summer of Love and things were happening and I rode up there on a motorcycle and arrived on Haight Street and it was this really amazing, incredibly perfect summer. I was ripe for it. I started reading and listening to esoteric music, and my whole life was transformed. |
| I was in Oregon with Bhagwan. He was an eastern teacher, now known by the name Osho, who I met in India. I went to Oregon as part of his commune in 1982 and I was there for a little under four years and then I came down to San Francisco again.
Bhagwan was someone who had some knowledge and a shakti power that was really strong. Kind of like he opened the door for me, for my path, even though I was already on the path. He made it more explicit for me. I think these Teachers can only take you so far and then you have to go without the training wheels. And so I left the community 11 years later. I considered him at that time in my life as the real thing. But as I've grown older and been on my own more with more experience, I now feel that he had his limitations. He was a man like anybody else and I loved him with all my heart. But I feel that if I had stayed there, I would have not grown emotionally or spiritually.
I had other teachers, but in different situations. I had a teacher down in Peru who I only spent a short period of time with in the Andes. He was part of the Andean Path, revealing knowledge that's been handed down from the Time of the Inca by word of mouth, never written down. And these are people
that don't use any psychotropic drugs and it's basically about ritual and I had some really amazing experiences in the Andes with this fellow. His name was Don Juan del Prado. I was going to go back and see him but somehow it never happened. I kind of miss being with Osho, but he was alive when I needed to listen and I don't want to be with a dead teacher.
My art right now is where I put all my energy in terms of growth, exploration and journeying. It's tied in with my experience with Osho. I'm gay and the gay community was very invited and welcomed in his community and there were a lot of gay people there. A number of them I knew at that time contacted AIDS and have since died. Because of the HIV situation, there was a sort of change in policy in the community. You had to have an HIV test to even get in to the commune. If you were HIV+ you couldn't be part of the community.
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| I felt in many ways that that was absurd. I talked about it in the community, expressing my dissatisfaction. At that time I was volunteering for the Zen Hospice in San Francisco so I was right in the middle of the AIDS epidemic, in the early 90s. I figured, well, I'm just going to cut off ties with the community. (Osho had died the previous year.)
[At that time] I thought of going back to my original name: James Rayburn McLauchlin III, which was a huge mouthful…I thought, well I'll be Jimmy Ray. I went by the name of Jimmy Ray for about 3 weeks but everyone knew me as Anado professionally… so I became Anado again.
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Over this period of time in my art work I had developed these pieces that have a somewhat artifactual quality about them. I came up with a body of work for a museum show here in Mexico, 6 or 7 years ago, called Artifacts from the Chapel of Jimmy Ray. I started constructing these pieces, keeping in mind that they came from a mythical origin. I was imagining this mythical situation while I was making the pieces… where they had been and what their purpose was in the Chapel. I had the show in February of I believe 2006 or 2007. I realized I needed to build my vision of the Chapel. In 2007 on April 1 we had a ground breaking for the Chapel of Jimmy Ray that was going to happen. It took us 5 years to build it. We had our Grand Opening on February 4 of this year, 2012. James Rayburn is the name of my father and my Grandfather. The Chapel Compound is dedicated to my father.
People donated some of the materials]. We search for materials and find them in the weirdest places, kind of abandoned. One deserted field was full of old Coca Cola bottles. I go to southwestern Guanajuato, to Correlejo, which is located almost in Jalisco. I buy the blue Tequila bottles which we use. I work with all different varieties of objects, found and bought, for the mosaics. It's very eclectic.
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I've often said that I'm celebrating the ordinary. Giving a sort of reverence and at the same time irreverence to the ordinary… by combining a lot of different religious imagery and really distilling them visually. Instead of only one path to the Proverbial Truth, I feel that there are many paths. As human beings… as a species… we all have many different belief systems to explain the Mystery. There's only one Mystery I feel and there's all these different sects that come up with explanations because they were all raised in different situations. There are the Bedouins in the desert, the people in the jungle, the Aztecs here with the sun, rain and corn. Who is to say that the Aztecs were wrong in their human sacrifice? There are really so many different things; one Mystery, different truths or approaches or interpretations. Not right or wrong just different avenues, different doors.
I call my work Sacred Placement. Placing things and bringing it all together, having fun. At the same time it can oftentimes be drudgery, it's hard work, it's physical. I’m working all the time…, like today was a very difficult day for me. I did work. It's very meditative, repetitive, and ordinary but at the same time in the ordinary something grand happens.
It's about opening yourself up to what flows through you, and my own particular vehicle is playful. I've always celebrated having a good time. I don't think we grow out of that. People come by and they try to make something out of it that's not there…I don’t discourage them
Today we were driving to Celaya, and I have a tendency to drive with a lot of aggression, because I was a taxi driver, and I simply made a point today being and breathing in my belly and relaxing and knowing that I'm to get there…but slower and more relaxed. I think that if we could somehow do that in our lives I mean every situation to be sitting there breathing…slowly…watchful… It's not taking one’s self seriously. Being a joke unto thyself! I think that's what enlightenment is in many ways is… lightening up…not taking this life so seriously... Getting rid of your burden, letting it go, it's a lifelong process, it's not just something that you do….it happens.
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Richard
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[The term "celebrity culture" I use to refer to] one of many things that I see happening in San Miguel. There are so ex- pats here, party people arriving, wealthy people buying homes. It's good for the economy and at the same time it's that whole thing you see in LA or NY…a Celebrity Culture. I have to take a step back because my commitment is to building our project out in the Campo and I can't be a part of the party culture here. I can't keep up with them. I don't want to keep up with this .They can have their dance…I join in from time to time I have a certain kind of notoriety only because I've been doing this for a while.. You have to, not be careful, but not everyone is looking out for you. It's true. It's very true. It's weird. It's strange that people know who you are. It's just odd…they point you out…I never had that until I came here. It's not like we are in hiding…I mean, look at us!. But Richard and I have a very secure life with each other and that's where our focus lies….out in the Campo with our critters…..
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I once heard Osho say, "The masses are foolish." And I don't think he was dissing the human race. I think he was dissing mass thought where people cling together in thought. He was encouraging a more individual experience. Whereas a lot of times we do things because everyone else does it, instead of coming from our own truth.
It's something where there is an atmosphere of solitude and quietude where true communication can happen instead of in glitz; even thought my art is totally glitzy Within that Glitz is a quiet place... Gurdjieff used to write these endless stories; he'd write page after page after page of blah-blah-blah, but within those blah-blah-blah-blah-blahs there was a kernel of Truth, and that was the meditation… to find that kernel of Truth. I feel that in my art that's what I attempting on a different level. I'm trying to give you a broad perspective, but within that broad perspective there is a quiet, solid, tiny place of yes, it's about yes.
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Somebody says, why don't you go to Burning Man... Well, I say, I do go to Burning Man every day. I don’t want to go to a desert to be in Burning Man I'll just burn here. This is where I burn. This is my Burning Man. I'm not at all dissing this cultural event, it's a very important event. But at the same time not everybody has to go there, especially a lot of artists don't really need to go there, if they are busy in their studios… It doesn't necessarily need to be their venue for expression. I'm doing that here and it takes a lot of energy. I don't particularly like the idea of sitting in the desert or being in a dust-storm. I grew up in Oklahoma which is a big-ass dust-bowl; why go back to the dust-bowl? I lived in the High Desert of Oregon. Some people need that real intense hit of nature in a creative process… which is fine. I had my Haight Ashbury, I don't wish to do it again… I don't wish to do drugs anymore… I don't wish to have sex with a lot of different people and I don't wishto stay up until 6 in the morning. I did all that. I had a good time. I also suffered because of it… and I moved on.
People say, if you remember the 60s you weren't there, but I remember the 60s and I was there and that's because I had some intention. No matter how immature I was, I had some degree of intention. I was a disciple with Bhagwan (Osho), we were called the sex cult, I kind of did the “sex thing”. At the same time I know that Burning Man is a different situation and it's important that these people do it. It's a rite of passage, in a sense, and these people choose that rite of passage and then you hopefully…move on. I tend to avoid those big crowds. I sold a piece recently entitled, “Return to the Source”…for me I choose to return to my own particular Source which lies in the campo... 5km from San Miguel.
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Yah, I do [have some stuff in museums], in a couple, one here in Mexico and one in the States. But I'm kind of on the outside of the scene. People say, oh you should do this, that, be here be there, in this magazine. Sometimes it comes through and sometimes it doesn't. Someone came the other day and said, "Oh, we want to put you in a gallery in LA." And I said, "I hear this all the time, if it happens it happens. I was an artist in New York in the 70s and I didn't have any sort of financial success in it. However I was in a peripheral part of the group of people who were doing some really important things. And then it was time to move on from there. And that's part of the reason why there is a Chapel of Jimmy Ray…it is my home…it's where I can center my energy. It's got soul. It really does. I saw a photo of it online the other day, a photo of when we were building it, and I could not believe we did it. I looked at it and I thought, oh my god, how'd we do that? It's a magical space. Yes, it really is.
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