STATEMENT
Recently a fellow creative caught me off guard. We were engaged in casual conversation and he asked me what I consider the dreaded question: “Hey, I just want to ask if you can explain your artist philosophy. Do you have any universal themes throughout your work?”
Ugh. I had a headache that day and did not want to have this conversation. Unlike some fellow artists I know and admire, I don’t have an intelligent and succinct response to this question. There’s also the real fear of sounding too woo-woo when describing the process, jumping the rails to sound like an ultra-hippie, or crazy person.
In reality, his inquiry is relatively typical in artist circles and shouldn’t be hard to answer. I should be able to answer with ease, and moreover, should have worked out my elevator pitch long ago. Unfortunately I haven’t. I believe this speaks to the evolutionary process I explore and may be tied to what I’m trying to resolve in the work itself. As I filled the dead space with chatter, I found myself envious of my friend Molly, who can sum up her work in one concise statement: “I paint funky fish.”
In reality, my work tends to be excavating, and evolves as I grow as a human. Engaged in self-exploration I use art as evidence of my growth. When I make I grow as a person, and when I grow, I’m more inclined to make things. I explore themes that include a juxtaposition of emotions. Fear, worthiness, triumph, playfulness, joy – all exist simultaneously within a piece, much like the human experience itself. This is rooted in my history and the complicated journey of identifying as an artist. Although my talent was always there, I’ve had different relationships with my artist self through the years. I confess I’ve spent more time than I care to admit being unkind to my artist self. Momentarily, and for the most part now, I’m grateful for the gifts I have, knowing they’re what set me apart from others. That knowledge has taken on different meanings throughout my lifetime: joyful memories in school when I could draw to the envy of others, to moments of guilt and shame about being different from my family of origin. Labeled as “too emotional,” the best parts of myself were labeled the worst. Being tagged as “too sensitive” when emoting feelings, I was assured I would not survive in the world. The messages woven through my formative years narrate my inner voice today. While experiencing the messages in real time, I somehow remained immune and happily kept creating. Of course I absorbed them, but didn’t realize the extent of the damage. During my first semester at the University of Michigan School of Art, all of the compiled messages began to avalanche and shake the foundation of the life I was building. It was no small task to be accepted into that program. I put myself on the path I had always imagined, but when these strong feelings began, I was overcome with unworthiness, fear of being homeless and a starving artist. Crippled with fear and unequipped, I began to move away from being an artist in the hopes that my family would accept me. I felt alone; it had always been my job to be strong and resilient. I finished my degree and had no idea of what to do next. I entered the workforce at a job at an ad agency, adjacent to the creative work I longed to do. I later learned after reading The Artist’s Way that this is a classic move of a stuck creative: being close to the desired work without allowing oneself to partake in it. I spent the next 15 years afraid of taking creative steps, and suffering for it. I took the adjacent route a second time in choosing to become an art teacher. Panic attacks shook me awake at night with the knowledge that I was not living an authentic life. I gave myself permission to give it a real try, ironically by moving back close to my family. (I didn’t say all this was healthy decision-making). I still experience varying degrees of creative flow. Sometimes I am in a good place where I am delighted in creating. Sometimes I avoid it like the plague, and deal with the pain associated with the avoidance.
How to put all that into an artist statement? When I’m in the flow, I believe I have a direct line to the muses. I’m compelled and consider myself a conduit through which the ideas flow. Borrowing a phrase that my principal uses when asked about goals he says: “always getting better.” The more I create, the better I become at my craft, the more clearly I communicate my experience, and the better I become as a human being. The story I tell is of my becoming, much of which shares universal themes, including the excavation of obstacles that hinder us from the best versions of ourselves. And with each day we begin again.
To clarify, I’d like to use recent work to illustrate my point. At the onset of the pandemic, we were given the gift of time. I was in a good spot and able to maximize the gift in a productive way, capturing my sentiments in a body of work. The series, I called “Gifts of Quarantine” was a body of work composed of 20 pieces. Jellyfish swirl and float over a lovely landscape. The two subjects are clearly juxtaposed, but exist within the confines of my consciousness. As a rule, I don’t enjoy explaining my work to others for a number of reasons:
- I’m afraid mere words won’t amply explain the motivation behind it
- The listener just won’t catch my drift
- I enjoy how others might interpret what they see
I’ll cut to the chase and break my own rule. The landscapes, all of which were derived from photos I took myself, represent an idyllic existence, the one described in my childhood as the one worth pursuing. The jellyfish are an interruption to that utopian viewpoint. While beautiful and mesmerizing to watch, they are potentially hurtful through interactions. Personally this series says to my personae: “Look out. You have some serious shit to deal with looming on the horizon.” To confess, I could not verbalize the idea behind this series clearly in 2020. To fully understand, I had to step back and look at it in historical context, compared to what I’m feeling now. Ah, growth.
Jellies Over Farmland, 2020 Jellies Over Maine Lighthouse, 2020
The same jellyfish are re-appearing in current work, only now they move closer. To be honest, these have been more difficult to birth. In some pieces my hands are interacting with them with varying degrees of murkiness. The latest piece I call “Closer,” represents how I’m dealing with the “shit” I mentioned before. I embrace the artist’s life, to varying degrees of productivity. I run an artist incubator to encourage creative growth in our membership. The murkiness of my interaction speaks to the obstacles that get in my way at any given time, from real-life time constraints to outright avoidance. Even while painting this, I changed it many times and contemplated how much of the hands to show. At the beginning, the hands to the left and below the jellyfish were fully visible. Each time I revisited the canvas, I incorporated more of that murky water until it covered them almost completely. Now when one looks at the piece, one can only detect a hint at flesh color beneath the murky lines. I really love the symbolism associated with all of that.
Closer, 2023
As I navigate the new normal I’ve created, I feel success and pride in the things I accomplish and retreat into bouts of guilt and shame. In fact, I’m in a full-blown bout right now. I just reached amazing highs working non-stop to re-locate our artist incubator and establish a gallery at at the new location. It was a ton of work, so now I’m tired and need to rest. The way to move through it is to be kind to myself, exhibit patience, move the drawing pencil a bit everyday, journal and get in some movement. I’ve also learned that it helps when I switch gears to attempt success in another area. It can be a craft project, yoga or as simple as taking a walk. I find if I can feel pride in accomplishing something small, it carries over to the things that scare me and I begin to build confidence in that area too. It is true that my work takes different directions and I don’t always have a clearly defined path. I don’t see that changing any time soon. In the meantime I have a lifetime to work through it, as I stick to my plan of following the muse.