Artist Statement
"Your body is not
a coffin for pain
to be buried in...
Let it live in Art"
I have heard of an Arabic proverb that might go as follows: "Throw your heart out in front of you and run ahead to catch it." This has been what I have done with most of my life as an Artist - bend towards that which I felt a twinge of love in and follow it: drawing, painting, singing, writing, drums, dancing, acting, teaching, football, soccer, storytelling, music, music and music and more teaching. I work daily to find ways to love these things more while looking for other things to bring into the fold. Make chores and responsibilities more attractive, worthy of loving.
Artistically, I have lived on a merry-go-round jumping off and onto one activity after another, from one approach to the opposite, looking for unstable ground within the parameters of drawing and painting. I have drawn since my earliest memories. In my 52 years of being an Artist, b.k.a. pro-active, delusional "muckey-muck", I have whittled my workshop regimen down to scratching into plexiglass, striking and caressing and rubbing and cajoling paint onto (and off of) canvas, and occasionally playing the part of a quasi-respectable commissioned portraitist or plein-air landscape "peintre".
It does not feel odd that I am becoming more adamant about maintaining a substantial level of confusion within my work. (I am hanging out with more 5, 6, and 7 year olds the past few years.) I have come to love, and trust, each of these image making processes for the kinds of visual submissions they help me formulate in my "Art Fog". I don't seem to seek clarity or understanding nearly as much as fulfillment and joy (especially in the making of the work).
What does this have to do with you? I do not assume to know. I for one hope that upon viewing my work, you will bend toward it as well as other Love inspired phenomenon. I am confident that since you are here, that toward Love is where you often lean.
Now, I have said nothing of Pain - the great teacher: anger, sadness, regret, guilt, insecurity, fear, contempt.....outgrowths of living and loving. These are the some of the spices of life and are in full abundance throughout my work if I am doing it well. I won't go into all of that here. That is what the work is for. Aah! I hear my theme music starting and will step away....
"Could you call on Lady Day? Could you call on John Coltrane? Now, 'cause they'll, they'll wash your troubles
Your troubles, your troubles, your troubles away!"
- Gil Scott-Heron (1949 – 2011)