July 2009 River Ranch Diary

Over the years I have had the occasion to know and talk with artists of all kinds, primarily writers, sculptors and painters. In discussions with them about art in general or their work in particular, I will try to lead the discussion around to a single question: “How do you know when the work is finished?” From that question I have received a variety of answers. One poet became a little upset. “What kind of a question is that? I don’t know. That’s for you critics to figure out.”

Then she just walked away. A sculptor told me: “… when I can’t do anything more with it, or when I get tired of it and want to do something else. At a certain point I just have to quit, walk away.”

Another said: “When doing anything more with it would ruin it. Maybe someone else could take the work further, but I am finished when I have done everything I can and, perhaps, have not yet harmed it—when another brush stroke turns it gray.”

I derive several things from these responses. The poet seemed to me to think that requiring her to discuss her artistic/creative process was somehow unfair because the discussion is a taking apart rather than a putting together of pieces. The sculptor in stone might worry about breaking the piece. He might also have a production deadline for a commissioned piece. And the painter seems to realize something about inherent limitations of skill and/or perception. But each of them appears to be concerned about a point of balance, a mysterious equilibrium between their perceptions of art and non-art. Achieving that balancing act between safety and disaster for the work requires an amazing, almost unbelievable ability to recognize it, reach it, and assure that it remain.

The balancing act between a company’s growth and its sustainability is much the same thing, a critical sense of equilibrium. Growth requires

expansion: expanded production, expanded market, expanded investment and supply of raw materials, expanded infra-structure, staff and equipment. In ranching that growth requires land, livestock, fences, feed, and water supplies; it requires machinery and employees, all of which can be a good thing—to a point. That point can be where the practice of sustainability ends.

Sustainability often slows growth; it prevents growth from becoming unbalanced. For example, a good year for ranching might allow the rancher to add a few more animals to the existing pasturage, but probably not kept at that level without acquiring more pasturage. More land requires more fence and water and maintenance, and tends to overload labor unless more staff is added. Added expense requires increased production, and increased production usually requires added expense, which tends quickly toward disequilibrium. Sustainability requires that growth be carefully planned and executed

An association with Native American buffalo producers provides a mechanism whereby Wild Idea Buffalo Company has access to suppliers of properly raised, grass fed buffalo (meeting our specifications), which allow us to maintain our own herd at a level in balance with our pasturage. As I have indicated previously, the limitations of our production, established in part by the capacities of our present staff and our physical facilities, allows us carefully measured growth, kept in balance with our client/customer base. Anything else would put us in disequilibrium roughly tantamount to that of the present state of our national economy, with specific reference to mortgage banking, automobile production, and the credit card industry. We cannot afford to do that. Sustainability means survivability, remaining in true and equal balance, which is the art of Wild Idea Buffalo, a viable method producing a quality product for a health and green conscious clientele.