stoicmike

by Kyla Estoya

“Do not let yourself be deluded by anyone; this is all I teach.” — Rinzai lineage monk, about 1200

Idiscovered Mike Lipsey on Pinterest. It was last year, I think. I wanted to explain to a friend how I wanted the vibe of a collage to look like by showing him an image of a dog’s cutout on a green backdrop. He dismissed me until I completely forgot why I wanted to make collages in the first place—I seriously don’t remember. I’ve always admired collages and I’ve had friends questioning my taste in art, asking why I would admire someone whose idea of a masterpiece is gluing and piecing random images together. “Well,” I’d begin, “I love how it’s about something, and nothing, and everything.” In most circumstances, they’ll let go and skip the debate.

I Pinned a lot of Michael’s works, and during quarantine, I realized he was one of the few people who have been keeping Tumblr alive. To me, Michael’s works were something new: he gives you a subject, a message, and a colorful background of what I would always imagine to be the sky.

“When I was in kindergarten almost 75 years ago, they gave us this coarse, flakey, yellowish paper and tins of broken crayons. I’d begun drawing loosely imagined landscapes, something like what I am still doing. How or why, I can’t explain. People find significance in my choice of figures, but they are mainly selected to match the landscapes,” Michael says.

People find significance in my choice of figures, but they are mainly selected to match the landscapes

During a library sale, he staggered home with forty large books to deconstruct: cheap editions of art books, art sales catalogues, collectible catalogs, cartoon books, photography books, etc. “The landscapes come first, about a dozen or so, then I look for figures that work in them, the epigrams come last, selected from a huge rough draft that [checking] is 1,802 pages at the moment,” he explains.

He has uploaded over 1500 collages online, not including the places and websites he isn’t aware of. “I search occasionally and also see them on merchandise. Every few months I get a request for using one of my epigrams for a tattoo—I have no idea if or how many might use them without asking. I’ve seen them made into a mobile, an animation, a college catalog, and of course re-blogged with all kinds of filters, which I hate. People tell me about blogs that use my material stripped of attributions, assuming I would be outraged, but I don’t really care, because I

Everyone who has a personal vision should pursue it, whatever the cost.

have no art career to guard, and whatever you put online belongs to the universe, so get over it!” he states. He mentions that these epigram collages were only one of the things he made, but over the course of time, became something he kept doing consistently: “I’ve never expected this single project to go on for as long as it has.” With the pandemic going on, he found more time organizing his archives and spent most of his days creating collages in his studio. “Also on the plus side I have never spent so much time working in my gardens,” he adds.

One thing I truly admire about Michael is how he reminds us we’re human (I’ll always be head over heels for people who effortlessly have that power), and how he doesn’t know the kind of good influence he has on the internet. With social media constantly giving us access to more things and all these different ways to connect, it’s no doubt Michael’s words transcend from one culture to another, mostly encouraging people to look inward. “I have no desire to be anyone’s guru or mentor. I’m interested in commenting on things that interest me—my thoughts, observations, and questions,” he explains. Most of what he writes are from classic Stoic philosophy filtered through his own experiences. He believes that during this crazy time in history, stoicism teaches us that we can’t control anything in our lives except what we feed our minds. He says, “If we can just do that, we can face the madness with equanimity and live decent lives.”

Being an artist requires a lot of technical skills. But other than that, it also means producing an idea that is yours; something true. An idea that not only pleases the viewers, or readers, or listeners, but also serves as a cathartic experience for the artist. And if there’s one thing Michael has taught me, it is that. “I don’t even know if I am an artist, or an outsider artist, writer, philosopher or whatever,” he says, “I decided to simplify my life by eliminating all thoughts of promoting, selling, showing, etc. The main thing is to have the freedom and leisure to pursue doing the work, just for the pure pleasure of the doing. The best chance of living as an artist may be to create an intentional life that provides freedom and security. That said, everyone who has a personal vision should pursue it, whatever the cost.”

Photo by Howard Rachelson