Artist Statement
It’s all art everything else is noise. Art is everywhere; in the water, in the food, the air and the light. It’s literal, subjective, and abstract. It’s found in the catchy pop song, the raunchy lyrics of a reimagined nursery rhyme, and the heroine-laced jazz solo. To live as an artist is partly an exercise in dissatisfaction, disappointment, and distance.
Luckily a half century of living, learning and experience has steeled my drive. This living was done in the real world, with real friends and real likes. As always change happens. The albums became cassettes, then CDs, and finally mp3s, and compressed music files. From the tangible to the NFT, it's always changing. The new thing is not necessarily the better thing. We must separate the bullshit from the exquisite on a daily basis.
People can’t even tell you if something is good anymore, they have to wait and see what the sales were, what the streams did, how many thumbs it got, what the comments are, what the algorithm says. All the filters are clogged with an endless amount of content, distraction, and plain old nonsense.
Be not fooled by this. Like the ancient stoics says, “Learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference.” Like the weight of gold in your hand, you know what is true, and what has value. You know when you are moved, and more importantly in this city, you know when you are stilled. That is the best outcome we can hope for as artists, to arrest someone’s attention. To have them pause in front of a piece and recognize the truth you have set before them. The thing you dove inward to find, the thing you excavated dusted off and polished, and to have that humanity recognized.
I now find myself is a state of constant transformation. Tearing down, taking apart making a mess of the place. Submerged in the dirt work of life and art. I must act on this compulsion or find it welling up inside until I am physically ill and a tyrant to live with. The work is the way, the artist must go on regardless of the obstacles until it is built, and it stands apart, complete and resplendent.
