It provoked me. Allowed me to finally communicate emotionally. I felt sensibilities I had never felt before. Such as, I hope she’s okay, What the hell is she doing?, I don’t feel too lonely with her around, This is actually kind of fun, and She seems to like me.

These are small gestures. Small aspects of life but for someone who was lacking, these little things actually meant the world to me at the time. Family members noticed the change in me. Even my friends. I fear no one will ever understand the desperation and need I had and the void that small animal filled. I’ve always considered Winnie, the cat, my saving grace. Bless her.

I’m sitting in the area of my work and before me is a broken, detached, metal, door I found by a dumpster the night before the opening. Someone noticed it and told me. They later said it was serendipitous that we find it. It’s still strange to me to hear a comment like that. I didn’t intend to be some kind of garbage man. I didn’t know people saw in me what I still failed to see but I was happy. It was a heavy door with broken hinges. I placed right in the middle of my space on the concrete.

I became both satisfied and discontent with the work. The usual part of me focused on my failures. The prints on the wall were all wrong (they should have been on newsprint), the organization was wrong, the arrangement was wrong, the message wasn’t clear. It was the normal kind of mental knee capping I was used to. This time around however I was proud of these failures. This time around, the broken door, wheat pasted, assemblage on the floor made more sense to me than anyone might notice.

Before the exhibition and maybe for some months I feared reacting the way I normally do during events like this. I was afraid I would hide underneath a bridge somewhere. I was afraid I would cry in a hole somewhere. I almost did. Instead I grabbed my drink and threw it on the discarded, metal, detritus. I spilled red wine, broke a glass, spit, stomped, and smiled at the simple conclusion I had come to.

A celebration of a real feeling. A real underground of simple gestures and pleasures. It all of sudden felt like everything really worked out as exactly as it should even if I’m the only one who knows this.

My images were about metaphor, symbolism, and how it has a hard time existing as a piece of “art”. I’m no longer interested in existing as an artist. It’s a role and a figure that comes with too much baggage.

Instead, for some time I have been trying to defend the validity of these “acts” having profound significance outside of the consolidated, category of “art”. My broken glass is the same as the one behind your home. My black balloons are the same as your drunken nights. My midnight, wheat pasting, procession is the same your retreat to your car, with your radio, and your book.

This practice is universally the same.

They tell me it’s totemic, my images. A few times already I’m told they seem totemic and quite frankly, I had to look it up to fully understand what they meant. It is about non-human object representing a spiritual essence. I suppose that’s always been what I’m going for. I couldn’t tell you why though because I don’t know.

I’ve been trying to defend the validity of this environment around us.

These acts seem to be universally the same.

 
Mixed media, installation, photography.

Group Exibition, “Exit Strategies”, Thursday May 15th, 5pm UCLA Broad Art Center. Everyone I love and hate, are invited. If you are in the latter don’t speak to me.

http://dma.ucla.edu/exit

black balloons hooked into my skin

fish hooks in glass jar with alcohol

going home

Current development. Ritual, process, meditation, and comfort. Balloons fishhooked into my back.

helium, balloons, hooks, wires, dirt, sun, wind, alcohol, blood.

Newspaper dispensers; bathroom stalls; alleyway dishrags; lamp post, warning signs; sidewalk stamp collections; donut shop, shopping, lines; homeless, dog, water bowls; tourist, guilt, candle, songs; chess game, philosophy; creole, shot, rain-day, street, fumes.

http://dma.ucla.edu/events/announcements.php#145

It will take place in Nevada.

Conspicuously taken from another blog.