What makes you a legitimate artist? Is it that you have a body of work. perhaps you have a really good idea and create things that represent that idea. What if you like to create things that represent but have no idea? No matter where you go or what you choose to do there will always be someone asking you why you are making what you make. What does it mean? What are you trying to say? How does it fit into the art world? how has history impacted it? What influences do you have? What artists do you look at?....These omnipresent questions surround us and at times can almost suffocate the excitement derived from creating, but there is no escape. The only thing to do is to confront their existence and try to deal with them. More often than not it is the confrontation of those ominous questions and issues that provide us with a better understanding of what we are actually trying to do, and manny times are a catalyst for breakthroughs.
Personally i have always struggled with these issues, feeling at a loss when asked these questions generally resulting in self-conscious questioning and doubt in, what moments ago, seemed like the best idea in the world. In response to these questions, it is all to easy to simply reject them because they are difficult, and to simply not care. but the problem is that they wont go away, and in fact seem to act as a enigmatic filtration system to separate the A’s from the B’s, the Art from the Bullshit. So from my viewpoint, it seems that the only LOGICAL thing to do when faced with these questions is to deal with them as soon as possible, so as to survive as a LEGITIMATE artist , in a time when being an artist is the most ILLOGICAL thing one could probably do.
I finally got a chance this weekend to start something new. I've been thinking about doing a series of figures that exemplify the heroism of the working class. i have also been interested in doing an installation of figures that form a crowd but are oblivious to each other, and perhaps preoccupied with technological communication to demonstrate the social disconnect of our culture. this particular figure is going to be a mechanic. i plan to have him carrying a tire on his shoulder which will frame his head in a halo.
Anne's crows stink! there covered in paint thinner and kept me out of the studio.
