For Better or Worse

When one teaches art in the “ivory tower” it shapes one’s practice and when one survives as a gallery artist (one who principly makes a living on sales) this also shapes one’s art. Expectations follow each pursuit. The answer to how the work gets shaped and what the work becomes is a bit less clear. Whether the goal is to be a little sharper, cleaner, or attention grabbing, the goal is to fit in (at least to the extent that an ongoing career is feasible). The context might shift but the psychology is the same. I feel that the impulse beyond the need to survive and make more falls under two branches. One branch is an existential drive (a primal need to build and keep the eyes and hands busy). The latter branch involves a spiritual impulse; this involves a determination to make an inner spark outwardly visible.

Over the past two years, I have been disconnected from teaching and from commercial aspirations. This has led me to question motives and to ask why continue? In a round about way, this question was given to me when I posted one of my recent pictures on Google+. A person I did not know asked (I think sincerely) why I had made the work. I said something to the effect of ‘for the enjoyment of making it’. In this case, the artwork did not have to make sense or be pretty. It was something that I wanted to experience and see.

For the time being, there is no rush, no need to make lots of pictures, and no one is asking to hang artwork on a wall for others to see. Sometimes I glue paper to paper and keep at it out of an unexplainable need to keep moving. Other times I feel like I am tending a garden because sustanance and transendant connections can be found in the order of artmaking. For the better, I continue.

Work in progress, “Coat of Arms”,  2015