Everyone Loves a Martyr

Often I find myself having to reaffirm things that are cliche' bits of advice from every mentorship that's ever existed in the history of knowledge-seeking. My latest body of work, Everyone Loves a Martyr, seems to deal with the pitfalls that these bits of advice address more and more as I continue to think about it. As many of you are aware, I (much like many of my peers) am in a transitional period. I've finished my MFA, am switching studios, changing my living situation, and winding down my second full body of work from this calendar year. It's a lot, and all of it is intimidating. All of that said, I have to admit that it wasn't until now (not this exact moment, but you get the point) that change isn't about getting used to things- it's about accepting those things as being the next step. Spending time worrying about being in a creative funk, or that your new space won't offer some of the old perks, are generated purely by comfort gone missing. The paintings in my most recent body of works vary in relationship to the issues mentioned. Works such as Heavy Limbs deal with "stuckness". Furthermore, in this case, there is the irony of having limbs which are typically used for movement but are designed to act as weights making movement impossible.

Push Me, Pull You deals with the desire to get away from these experiences. This comes with the inevitable realization that no matter how much we scrape our nails against the ground, and try to take off, our experiences follow us wherever we go. For better or worse, it becomes part of who we are.

Others, such as Pox deal more with trying to live with the pain and discomfort of change. Chunks are missing, body begins to erode, and yet the the posture is appearing strong, and the appearance of a halo is intended to act as a self-established sign of faith in things repairing themselves, as if to ignore the dissolving of structural integrity.

The advice I've prescribed myself is as follows: •Fear should be reserved for things like that adrenaline boost you need to run from an exploding gas can- not a change of pace. Sure, this isn't a response that has its roots in logic, but it isn't impossible to take charge. In reference to the aforementioned loss of comfort- every once in a while you need to sleep on the floor to work out the kinks in your back left by a mattress. •Change is an opportunity, not an obstacle. If you've just busted your ass on a body of work and it feels that it's come to an end, don't stop working. Take a chance to make some bad work- you'll find it's as valuable as the "good" stuff. Aside from that, everyone has failures. Anyone making art for any length of time has made bad work. Sure, some have made much more bad work than others, but it's the one's that learn from them that seem to carry on. Getting bogged down by how some things used to be makes it very difficult to discover the potential of a new endeavor. •Things that don't work out well aren't a reflection of who you are. At the end of the day, we'd all like to believe that our work, or relationships, or what have you are an expression of our beings. At the end of the day, they're just segments of our character- a complete picture. For more of the recent works, and those to come, visit HERE.