Seeker of obsessions

Lucas Samaras' boxes are notoriously decorative and devious...they have a darkness to them that I can't explain, the pins, needles, nails and razors create this sense of tension in a world of beauty and decoration. The materials that he uses to achieve this decorative quality are not "high" materials, like gold or jewels...they are plastic and superficial, common and ordinary - pebbles, pencils and yarn...However, in the context of multiples, next to one another, they make a luxurious and powerful statement...

The context is very attractive and complex, it is personally interesting to me...the way you have to deal with the interior verses the exterior...how these areas are vi sable and then hidden...how they reference each other and help define each other, separate yet together...Lucas Samaras is effective in describing, visually, these surfaces and competing areas...handled obsessively, the boxes say more that we know and care to admit...

The storms are coming...

The process can start many different ways, via conceptual inklings, formal placement concerns or evolving out of a love with materials...I tend to begin and push based on the idea, the thoughts persistently driving in my brain...the image that will not go away, that is so persistent it has to be revealed and realized...the context can be in may forms, often it is a container...a three-dimensional object that can be manipulated and enjoyed through touch...this too is conceptual in nature...the forms remove themselves from the traditional separation of "Artist," with a capital "A" and "Viewer," with a capital "V." Alluding to the Arts & Craft movement, but with a darker side...these explorations grow out of historical contexts and knowledge beyond the craft...but are essential, for me, in the making of the object....exploring my obsessions...this particular piece came about due to my anxiety regarding Hurricanes and my new found home, right in the path of several...being from Chicago, I was only aware in a peripheral way...the thoughts and obsession to control the situation, being out of control, brought the storm inside the house, inside to reek havoc and stress...contained and unable to escape...we couldn't avoid the outside, nor the inside...trapped like anxious rats...I so wanted to the doors to fly open and allow us to escape and in the same breath, it was my worse fear...interior and exterior become one...

The beginning...

Why is it that we miss the boat when it comes to education in the arts? The culture seems to herald the "Artist" as the creator and the showman, the hope of the future, the driver of innovation...however, no energy is ever put into its education, to the fertilization of young minds...Maybe it's that we don't fit in the mold of the academy? We seem simple and base to the grand scholars, yet there is a rich and powerful history, well beyond that of most disciplines...an insidious passion that eats everything in its path...we are subversive and uncontrollable, uncanny and lost...this is what makes others afraid...this is what makes those of us that create afraid...sometimes I call it the beautiful addiction...my goal is to expound upon these ideas, reflect on the past and put it into context of the future...fight for what is right and just and explore both sides of the argument...have fun and act a little irreverent...

So in this space between, occurs the most important work we can do, the exploration of ourselves, the creation of connections and skills to solve the most complex problems...