Sermon

The show in Tuscaloosa was a good one, accompanied by a perfect weekend weather-wise-"Bama even won the game!

When I'm at these art shows, I spend a lot of time with my work, not doing or making it, but just looking at it. I tend to think of this time as similar to the time spent just before sleep, where you might go over your to-do list, mull over the events of the day, think more in depth about your interactions with others and all that. Many inchoate ideas that (good or bad) disappear right after you lose consciousness...this is true of the thousand thoughts I have while in the booth-fully engaged with them until someone steps into the space. Most of those thoughts vanish (unless I wrote them down) and few reappear-unless they are very strong (this could mean that they are worrisome, problems needing attention or, occasionally, bits of brilliance that may or may not lead me somewhere).

So what does this mean to us artists? Speaking to two friends this past weekend, we compared notes on where we were vs where might like to be (in terms of our work). We all agreed that, although our work isn't exactly famous or a traded commodity, we have seen some degree of success with it, that we are tied into making "things" that get us not only approval, varying degrees of recognition and money-in short, we are "known" and our work is our signature.

So how hard would it be to leave this behind and start some newer, more challenging work (referring back to the inchoate or even burgeoning ideas of the daydreaming mentioned before)?

It's tough, if not impossible to leave what you have (somewhat successfully) started behind-I wondered if it would not be possible to divide up the time, much like I have in the past with part time jobs-having predetermined that such and such days of the week be devoted to the new stuff and the remainder used for the "signature" (maybe I should call it the cash crop) work.

This works well for those of us who can compartmentalize-I mean, it is a good theory but I can't tell you that I had that much experience trying it.

I have tried to do this with painting...those of you who know me realize that I've always been a jealous bastard when it comes to good painting and painters. I decided to spend one day a week painting-physically removed from where I make sculpture (the change of scenery is key here, but how many of us have more than one workspace?). This worked, but relatively soon, I could feel that the painting needed more time. My next plan is to spend two consecutive days working on my painting. I'll let you know how it works out.

What I realized while painting: my sculptural self was not firing on all cylinders-habit seemed to be taking over my thinking and think-time in the shop. Whatever resources I use to work more efficiently (on my signature work) is pushing out new thoughts-effectively muting them . There's a comfort issue here-repetition does feel safe. People are such efficient machines-at least until their brains come into play. Is this obvious? Yes and no, since we've all experienced owning habits that don't make much sense or are not good for us, but make us feel safe. Many of us live with some habits for our entire lives since the alternative is, well, an unknown.

Anyway, I hope that I've made a clear point here and that maybe as artists we could all stand to devote a day out of the seven we've got each week to rethink what we're doing and where we are going.

This is an older piece made from some auto steel and some other recognizable parts.