Art is Risk Made Visible

23 Apr Art is Risk Made Visible

I made this site live, or at least I told a handful of people about it, a few days ago. And since then, I have felt like pulling it down every hour.

You see I live with this insane contradiction, a dichotomy that I think many of us artists live with, where I feel both wildly confident about my work, driven to a point where I won’t eat well or sleep much for days at a time, I will just work and think and read, wanting to “make everything art”, AND I also feel like hiding myself away, not letting anyone know what I am up to, feeling like it’s all meaningless, and not allowing anyone to SEE me.

I get to SEE you, but I don’t let you SEE me.

I will say boldly revealing things as a teacher, incredibly, heartbreakingly true things about my personal life, about my psyche, but then I also get to hide behind the role of teacher or the camera lens. 

Many artists, painters, sculptors, get to put their artwork out there, and then disappear from the scene, never really seeing how their babies (their artworks) are responded to, how they are noticed, caressed, cared for, or seen. 

Most of my art works, aside from my photographs, exist as living artworks. They are living installations that come alive when you enter them, guided by my voice, through the experiential experiment I’ve arranged for you, this temporal, ephemeral gift that is activated only for a few hours, by and for you.

You are a core part of the art, and I am constantly updating and adapting it FOR you. The same is true when I am making my photographs. I am curling myself around you, breathing with you, moving with you, shaping what transpires with you. It is why I shoot on film – because I have to stay present with you – no shiny image in a square to reference – just me and you together making a magical lived experience.

And I’ve felt comfortable this way, disappearing into the art. Making it more about YOU and less about me. However, I would be lying, and I have been lying, when I say I don’t want to be seen, too. So much of my art, most of it, in fact, I’ve given away for free. It was a move I made about ego death – about working against the nonsense I saw out there in the world around coaching and Instagram and bologna sandwich pyramid schemes. I wanted to be different. I wanted to be selfless. I wanted to experiment with a world based in radical generosity. And I am fortunate to have a business, and we do well, and I told myself I didn’t need the money,  and I didn’t care.

But for a long time, I’ve also trained my students and my  subjects to not know how to value what I’ve made for them and with them. To take it all and not see that standing right in front of them is me and I am what I am: 

One of the most innovative, thoughtful, well researched, visionary, creative, talented artists and thinkers there is. 

And so here I am. Presenting myself to you. And I’ve cultivated my art for years. Years of education. Years of working in obscurity. Years of practice. Years of travel. Years of reading. Years of mentoring and learning alongside my assistant, Brenna, who herself is a fierce creative talent.

And now that I have said this, I want to erase it.  I want to go hide and take all of that back.

The picture with this blog is Julie Harris Chatham and Harold Sims. Julie is the one that put a camera (back) in my hands and told me to start taking my own pictures. I was paying her to take photos. I would set up elaborate shoots, pay models, pay for locations, and direct the action. One day she turned to me and said “you need to start taking your own photos”. I cried. Like wept, in a restaurant. Told her I couldn’t do it. Even though I have a background in art. But then, she went on vacation and I had a shoot booked already, so, I did. 

And she kept pushing me to take more chances. Like to shoot only on film. To be edgier. She bought me art books. She sent me inspiration. 

She still takes photos of me. All the photos on this site of me are taken by her. I absolutely adore her in every way. She is my heart.

Harold is not only a classically trained chef and a genius with food (and his new line of THC infused teas!) but he and I started making films together. Why? Because he showed up one day with a video camera and some amazing ideas and asked me if he could film things. And we learned side by side. And because he is emotionally honest and raw in a way I have never seen a man be. Harold is risk made visible. Harold is art.

I owe so much to Harold and Julie.

And also to Dash Harrison, who has worked with me for 10 years+. Dash believes in me. Dash works with me in my other job. And Dash kept asking me for years when I was going to make a site with my art on it. He asked me until I did it. And then he built this site for me. Thank you, Dash.