There is something in the air today. I typically am not annoyed by people that often, but today my patience has been tested. I wondered why? Sometimes I feel like the character Chance from the Jerzy Kosinski novel, Being There. I spend so much time alone that often times I am completely unable to relate to others. Today there must be a massive solar flare or something that is upsetting all of the humans living on this planet that I have encountered today. Tempers seem to be flaring more quickly then usual, I have seen three people blow up today over seemingly absurd events.

This is reminding me of a movie I watched the other night called Visioneers, an absurd movie about people literally blowing up from stress. I can relate to feeling like I might blow up, I can also relate to doing everything in my power to avoid blowing up. One of the things that I have done is to completely disarm myself from situations that have made me ill at ease. I have avoided persons that I feel are not conducive to me making my artwork; I have avoided being in loud noisy places that make me feel anxious and a general dislike of my fellow humans.

Who would not want to be a hermit, live in solitude and do as they will without the conflicts of personality abound? I was recently asked if I had the opportunity to be on a desert island who would I want to be with, I could only say myself and a collection of good books and a means to make art. But what is art if it is not shared with the world? What is a world that is not shared?

I cannot help but think that we as artists have become creatures that make work that is meant for consumption. We have begun to make solely for the purpose to achieve the supposed higher goal of “showing” our work in galleries or museum. The notion of art for the purpose of communication, or art for arts sake, seems tired and dull to most. That somehow for an artists work to be valid that it must be part of a conversation. I am not entirely against that notion, but I am not entirely for it either.

I have not be much interested in sharing my work with the world until very recently, and now I feel as if I actually have something to say, that I am communicating something that is not just about art history, or about theory, that I am really communicating what it means for me to experience my life as a human. That being said there is a poetics of absence, a poetics of fear, a poetics of irritation, poetics of being, poetics of beauty, poetics of water moving from high places to low places, poetics of brevity, poetics of thought, poetics of hermits, poetics of solace, poetics of war, poetics of lying, how can the complexities of being human be expressed visually, how can we make a poetry to communicate that experience to others? I simply stopped trying and started making, making art from my experience; I am attempting to be as honest about being me as I can possibly be. That seems to be the best approach for me, to remove my masks and really just share with the world how I am. It’s more difficult then one can imagine, as I would much rather not deal with others and the world, but I find that the more that I engage in the world and with the world the more my work begins to open up and the more willing I am able to share.