My Art Philosophy

[Questions provided by Ron Mills]

1. INSPIRATION/MOTIVATION: Is making art urgent for you?  Do you wake up thinking about it? What motivates you to spend time in the studio?

Contemplating art does not stem from a particular time of day, but rather a state of being.  For example, if I have an emotion that is bursting out of me, I create.  This is why making art is such an urgent necessity.  I create as a therapeutic practice, a meditative mood stabilizer.  I also spend time in the studio when I am inspired.  I am inspired primarily by moral and emotional dilemmas.  Regardless of the originating cause for my being in the studio, when I feel I get an urge to make art my head spins with ideas.  The ideas flash by in bursts that I cannot stop until I create.

2. CELEBRITY: Is it important to you, or do you fantasize about being a famous artist…or a successful gallery artist being seen by many and selling lots of work…being an art celebrity, being in the history books?  Showing in “important” galleries and being in museum collections? Being written about by critics?   If so, what are you presently doing toward that goal?  If not, what role to you vie for as you develop?

I do not have aspirations of becoming a celebrity artist.   As I am human and frequently change my mind I'd worry that with celebrity status I would not be able to contradict myself.  I'd only want to be in well-respected galleries being critiqued by famous art critics if I was very sure in both my emotional and mental state of being.  I hope to develop a role as an artistic mentor.  I love to create and inspire or provoke thought through my creations but I am sensitive at this stage in my life, and currently could not handle the scrutiny.

3. AUDIENCE: Do you want to communicate anything specific with others through your work? Do you want your art to be relevant, even important to others or is it primarily self-therapy?  What are you doing in your current work toward that or another position regarding you role vis-a-vis others?

I want to communicate that we are alone as human beings.  People will leave us by choice, by emotional closeness, by geographical proximity, by death.  It is much more soothing to accept being alone.  The continuous disappointment of not being part of a crowd, or feeling alone in a crowd is unsettling.  I'd rather be able to self soothe rather than rely on others.  Though my work is an act of self-therapy I still believe it to be relevant to others. I believe humans can save themselves a lot of distress by accepting that we are alone.

4. IDENTITY: Do you see yourself as a genius, gadfly, agent provocateur, a hero, healer or an antagonist, perhaps a philosopher, an art priest, a sage?  Do you feature your {gender, race, culture, identity, handicaps, traumas} in your art?  Do you introduce yourself as an artist?  Explain.  If none of the above, how do you define your self-image.

I see myself as an art philosopher.  I feature my identity, as well as my handicaps and traumas in my work.  I tend to introduce myself as an artist to my work as I find it difficult, if not impossible, to separate my bias and perspective from the work at hand.

5. TONE: Is {sincerity and/or irony, humor, beauty, craft, acuity of perception, rawness, poetic grace, spirituality, high concept, primal emotion} important to you as an artist?  What are you currently doing in your work to demonstrate and promote one or more of these of other unnamed traits?

My work has a tone of poetic grace.  My work is based in raw emotions, such as fear.  Due to that and the fact that I utilize natural materials I would need to achieve a certain poetic quality in order to do the materials justice.

6. ASPIRATIONS: Do you hope to make the world a better place through your art, to address and/or critique social/political/gender/racial/cultural issues?  Provide social commentary?  Critique the art world and its institutions?  What are you currently doing in your work to further a cause or raise awareness about any of that?

I hope to provide a social observation, which in turn could bring about a sense of inner comfort and solace. I am working with the human form to raise awareness to the error in thinking: that we need to be with others to be happy, fulfilled etc.

7. MOTIVATION: What motivates you to spend time in the studio? Do you derive self-satisfaction from the process of working or are you more interested in the product?

I need art as a healthy outlet to process feelings I am not yet ready to understand, or examine.  I am interested mostly in the process.  The product of my installations is incredibly satisfying, but the process is where I learn the most.  To me, learning is more satisfying than stepping back and looking at something I already created.