Artist’s Statement

 

We drove across the country and I shot a roll of film, and the photos were all a mess. Light leaks or maybe my kids opened the back of the camera, and the few that turned out I missed the focus. This year this has become a recurring theme. The equipment I hold in my hands is old and turns against me or maybe I’m just not good enough. Maybe I am losing the heart to make it work.

An artist’s statement gives a basis for a visual artist’s collection. It explains what they have created based upon who they are and what they have to say. A faulty artist’s statement leaves nothing to the imagination, nothing for the viewer to work out, or it’s so vague that anyone could have written it and the viewer is left no wiser about what they are looking at. And then there are the excuses… In college you always knew which students would use their artist’s statement as a way to explain away their mess. Say that you meant to do it and a weak painting might stand.

I am drawn to the uncertain, the mystery, but I always thought I had a thesis for my life. My marriage, a home and my children… they are my body of work are they not? And also I make pictures, sometimes I am paid for them. Art, right? I am a maker. But what happens when all you make and see are messes and mistakes. What happens when your collection isn’t cohesive and you can’t recognize yourself in the mirror? What happens when you wake to see all the mirrors pointed back at you and your life, and it wasn’t the thesis you wrote out in grade school?

Then you need a word to speak or a picture to paint. Something to make your heart feel again. Happiness lies disheveled but there is still a world of interest out there. There must be something to say, that proves you are here.

So I dig through film I had given up for lost, splatter paint on canvas and grow so quiet I can hear my dreams breath. Listening to the thoughts I shouldn’t think.

This is not a project or a manifesto

This is one person saying, I don’t know

But one thing is clear, I would rather see these photos, the dry lake bed bleached pink and the mountains fading over exposed into violet, than hold images perfect, all the hues, tones and values neatly arranged until they mean nothing more than a xerox.

And maybe all the failings, mess and mistakes make the masterpiece.

maybe

 

“There is no misery in art. All art is about saying yes, and all art is about its own making.” – John Currin

 

11-2014 . Canon AE1