Artist Statement for Agrestic BFA show

Artist’s Statement
We are impermanent. We are surrounded by constant change, and left with the remnants of what was and used to be. I was made aware of this at a young age with the death of my father’s father, and have spent several years of my college experience faced with that fact again, and again with more losses of those I’ve admired and loved deeply. My work revolves around, and tries to analyze the state of our condition in such impermanence. I’ve always been drawn to subjects like fossils, mummies, and the ideas they brought forth of mortality, as well as our timeless strive to overcome it. In a way, they are a record. In a way, despite our impermanence, they surpass time.
I create portions of the female figure in an identification of self—creating a personal connection between the pieces and myself, often building up the entire form whole, and then tearing away portions of it. My work is a constant juxtaposing force of creation and destruction, the record of which is recorded in the bisque and glaze. My surfaces often play up and twist the sense of the clay as flesh, ranging from terra sig to a crackled glaze, while also harkening to more fossil and rock derived surfaces to give also a state of permanence. Through it all, I am exploring not only the whole of our shared mortality, but coming to terms with the idea of it all in concerns to myself. It’s all self-made fossils of contemplation in the fact that I too will someday be little more than dust, and these pieces are my remnants—my mummies to overcome it in some small way.
The first contemporary artist that inspired me both in medium and form was Kathy Venter and her Immersion series—terra cotta human forms suspended as though in water and in quiet depth. There is something uniquely unsettling and yet enthralling to see things so weighted suddenly proposed to be weightless and suspended in this dark, unseen water. My second major influence is another figurative ceramicist, Nan Smith, who creates more introverted and quiet situations with her female figures. They explore the intuitive, more introverted mentality of the woman, trying to find that inner moment of reflective silence.

Studio Update

It's been a few weeks since the whirlwind of the possibility of a studio in the Lowertown Arts District occured. That particular studio didn't work out due to ventiliation issues, and the possibility of clay dust particles mingling malignantly with the painters' paintings.

While I consented to not have the space, I will have to admit I was a little disheartened. I don't want to screw up anyone's art, but the opportunity for peer feedback was something I was looking forward to. I'm a fairly clean mudbug because of my own allergies, but, meh. I was peeved for all of five minutes, then I just sort of pouted to myself, and now I'm alright and moving on.

I need to get over this wishwashiness and assert myself, cause, art, ect.

But in my defense, it's looking like I'll have a studio at home pretty soon that will not be purely seasonal. Why pay for a studio, when I'll have a space for free in my backyard?

If I want my art to viewed, I just need to get out and start promoting it, and trying to get into shows. Juried Art Services is a really nice site for this. I already have an account there from when I applied for the Windgate Fellowship grant, and I get notices all the time about upcoming shows accepting entries, and because of the grant app, all my current work is present in good quality photos to just reassign and apply to.

My somewhat New Years resolution has been to be fearless, and it's what's gotten me exposed to the LT Arts District in the first place.

Hopefully things will continue to develop and blossom. I'm wanting to expand and get back into metalsmithing as well, and ideas of things to start making and experimenting with are getting me excited to start seeing what appeals to buyers.

We'll see!

Aster (cat, furry child who claims me) keeps distracting me by playing in a paper bag noisily. Must end it here. Will post a copy of my current Artist Statement just to have it up since that won't take me trying to think and type at the same time. Thank you, copy/paste.

Rarely do I write Poetry, But.

Poetry I've had in my head, I'll finally let out for shits and giggles. Please note these aren't necessarily auto-biographical, though events in the day might inspire the 'voice' speaking them. Be prepared for snark, brutal honestly, and so forth.

I.
The wad of hair you left
In the shower drain
Approaches my unguarded foot
Like a meandering,
great
shark.

II.
I once thought about
The shit for economy
And the lack of a place
For hungry souls like me.

I once thought about
Jumping off the side of
A bridge into the frothing
Waters by the dam,

Becoming One Voice
For the Placeless.
Then I remembered that
I am still afraid of heights.

Please forgive me,
O Hungry Souls,
I am still too vain
To speak for you.

III.
I'm writing
This poem
Two words
A time
Just to
Piss you
Off, dear.

IV.
That thread you've worried away at
With a dull pocket knife
is quite frankly,
Me.

>>More to come when I can stop fighting my wireless connection.

Studio Bebop

A LOT has happened in a very short amount of time. Even I'm still sort of dazed and overwhelmed. So, here is the breadth of it as far as I'm in understanding, and what's going on in my own mind over the matter:

The idea of heading out west to Seattle has been the most prominent idea in my mind since about August. This is mostly due to the fact that I want to end up at the university there, and I have lived with the notion that, if I want to do anything with my life that would let me continue to focus on my sculpture, there was no means or way to do so here in Kentucky. Lately, I've been frustrated with feeling the sensation that there's this big bell jar encasing me here, and all I could do up to now was bang against the sides of it saying 'I need out, I need out, I need out!'

There have been emotional and mental needs for this, things at home that weren't as smooth as they used to be, affecting my own drive and abilities to being a depressed cripple in a room that had made itself my prison. The opportunity to work in Seattle arose, but I didn't feel my heart in it. Rather, I think I was going through the motions just to find an avenue to get away. It wasn't what I wanted to do, if I'm honest with myself. And what I'm itching to make as soon as I'm about to spend hours on end outside, it still closely tied to my origins and location, here. In Seattle, the relevance and importance would be lost to me, and I'd be left with nothing but clay, and a want to go back on the farm and build in the creek. It was strange then, that after some correspondence with a possible supervisor that when the time came for her to call me to talk more about the position and do an informal interview, things kept popping up that ended up having her needing to reschedule. A meeting, ect. So that three days went by and I didn't get a call, the last two without even notification as to what was the stalling factor.

In the meantime, I had gone to Paducah yesterday to get out, cruise supply stores, pick up a packet to apply for substitute teaching, and was on my way home going the old way through the downtown area when quite literally a whim made me want to go through the Lower Town Arts District just to see if anything was open on a Friday afternoon, mild as it was. One was. I went in, noting that it was a jewellry gallery/store for an artistt who was currently out of town showing her work. The woman behind the counter struck up a conversation with me, and I found out she was a painter. We talked about what I'd gone to school for, the 'next step', and in the midst of this, she asked if I had a studio. I replied that I didn't, and was also needing to find a place to store some of my work so that it wouldn't be in danger of getting damaged... (Alas, poor Twinkletoes, I knew ye well.) She perked and said quite simply: 'Do you want one?' to which I rather profoundly stared in typical 'Huh?' fashion. I gave her my email and the like, just so she could get in contact with me as things were passed on, when three other people made their way in succession into the building and it built up into a 'What's so-and-so's number? I'll call him now, he can give you a tour of the place' and me scribbling directions and sort of standing baffled in the midst of all this like 'I just came here to look at the sparklies...?'

Eventually, I found myself standing in front of a house that one the side I learned led to the studio. A couple came out, found out what I was standing there for (they live in the upper flat) and they rather happily talked with me as I waited to meet up and be shown the space. Immediately, I have to say, that everyone's attitude was immensely welcoming and supportive, and I'm kind of startled by it, though as Meryl (? Sounds like Murl, I'm not sure. I need to look this up...) said as he showed me around, 'Well, that's what we try to do,' in taking care of people. We bonded over coffee. I'm tempted to go to Etcetera this afternoon and try out their selection, by the way.

I cried when I got home, mostly from the emotional upheaval and supreme randomness of the Seattle door looking stalled, and this one waving its hand going 'Uh, hello. Right here. See me yet?' And the sheer relief of it that I hadn't realized I would feel. There wasn't a glass bell at all. I just wasn't awake enough to see what I wanted was already here. It might stall my hopes of seeing Zoe Keating live in concert in the near future, but I could work with it.

I don't believe in coincidence. I take events that occur simply as that was the manner in which it has happened, and I need to clue in, balls up, and get with it because I'm being told something.

It was one of those instances.

I'm more awake today, more cautious. And, as with all things that seem to good to be true (I'm a pessimist, try to overlook it and love me anyway?), a wrench appears in the works when I get a call that the bit about clay=dust that we all sort of forgot (I'm used to it, is my excuse) means that particular studio might not work out due to ventilation of the house and the effect it might have on the paintings. But, he's said that he's talking to the other ceramicists in town about ventilation, what works, what they could do, and if that particular studio doesn't work out, he's bouncing my name around to see if I can land something else more fitting, maybe even with one of the other ceramicist.

My thoughts are boiled down to this:

Please don't let an open door like this be a tease.

Am I supposed to stay, or go?

I've only just been made aware of the LTAD, apparently I've had my head up my ass, but already the strong sense of community and want to help each other out is so extreme and so family-like that no matter what occurs, I'm wondering if this is a heads up to get involved in one fashion or another regardless to do what little I can to help it out.

Am I supposed to stay, or go?

And I could really, really use some coffee.

I'm mentally chewing a thumbnail over the whole situation, and trying to be realistic. What I want more than anything is to know what I'm supposed to do, but this is life, and we don't get a by-the-step book to our lives.

So that's pretty much it. You now know everything. All I can ask is that you send good thoughts/vibes/prayers/dances with pine branches and blue painted bodies ---... okay, that might just be fantasy, you get the idea... my way so that one way or another, I go where I'm needing to go.

Much love.

PS: Going to miss NCECA this year like a leg. If anyone goes, send pictures.

Because I Wanted

The thought of creating a blog or some manner of record concerning things I'm thinking about in regards to sculpture, art, ect has been haunting me since we had the visiting graduate students in the fall.

To make it short and sweet, this is where I'll probably be loading images that I find aesthetically pleasing, artists I'm looking to in appreciation/inspiration, and things that are going on that I really just want to think about.

Hopefully it'll be a helluva ride.