I am all the things I am and even those I’m not.
So what do you do? How many times is that our first question? In a room full of strangers we are so conditioned to find a connection with someone based on the doings. We all desperately crave connection and understanding. But depending on the environment we can feel shy, embarrassed, or sometimes ashamed, to answer that question. Even the answer itself it loaded with a lot of other questions. For me, being an artist, comes with its own set of follow up questions. It may come as a surprise, but honestly I don’t know where to go from here. So most of the time it’s safe to stay on the surface; what are my materials? What style? Where is my work shown? All of which is not to be discredited, but also not the complete picture.
The bigger questions for me is how long did it take to bring to form all the ways in which my life has lead me to the now. The formless nature of my work. Because I’m not a “what you see is what you get” kind of person. I like the contradictions. I enjoy the unexpected. I appreciate the questions without answers. The space between our words. My lack of formal training is not a crutch. Instead it has left me to discover things in my own way. A kind of scenic route if you will. I’m not the type to immerse myself in book and study the historical significance of certain movements. I am all the things I am and even those I’m not. So it doesn’t surprise me that I might arrive at some of the same decisions as those who have come before me have arrived at.
But looking, seeing, is the minds way of categorizing and creating order. This compulsion we all share to label and keep things in order. Art has nothing to do with order. Or is it that the act of creating has nothing to do with order? All the years I’ve spent trying to keep order and make my work cohesive or have a consistent look has kept me from my truest self. To control ones own work is to not trust ones own self. To truly feel what I feel I have to wait. Honesty with myself requires space for silence. The same silence carved out by rocks and trees and birds. The acknowledgment of the urge, the desire, to make what someone else expects of me. All of it someone belongs in a messy tangle of the give and take of life.
To control ones own work is to not trust ones own self.
I am not complete in my doing. My doing comes from a deep well of being. The formless that breathes and give life to form. Not some definition of style or system of rules but a practice of trusting myself and being open to the only constant; change. Allowing myself to change and evolve. I want to develop a body of work that is honest. I want what it left, what is surrendered, when I walk away to be a bigger question than a definitive answer. All of this I feel when I sit down across from an empty canvas. Mind blank. Siting under the weight of making mistakes. Fearing the first move. Then and only then do I begin the process of forming new paths when I make the first mark.