Coming up with a new artist statement

How do we acknowledge the moments and days where we feel the most alive? Being present gives me clarity to choose what to do with all of my free time. I think this kind of space scares people normally, or offends people as if I am not pulling my weight in society.

But I do believe that there are simple ways that I try to live by that are profound.

Trying not to work too hard,

trying not to be satisfied,

trying not to lose time to mindless tasks unless I want to,

trying not to master something to the point of where it becomes mindless,

trying to avoid small talk,

trying to avoid competition,

trying to avoid irrationality,

trying to avoid being the only one who can get something out of my art practice.

trying to avoid doing anything just for the sake of it

trying to avoid being stubborn

There comes a time a point where you adapt a strategy that you don’t know how you got started, but you start getting exactly what you want and you find yourself sharing a moment with another person, or with yourself, or with time.

Before graduate school it was the realization of the kind of social capital that artists have and being able to demand free time without judgement, to become part of a subculture. I would navigate the world in ways that would allow me to join other people's journeys or bring people with mine and to achieve every kind of success on every level without having to compromise my sanity.

So what am I doing in grad school?

I’m watching a lot of movies

I write things like this that are somewhere between a diary a manifesto and a shopping list

I’m sharing meals with new friends

I’m getting to know new technicians and learning about new processes

I’m spending as much time as I can with my partner Rachel

I’m making mockups for artwork that isn’t possible to make just right now

I’m reading books that have topics that are so interesting that I don’t feel the pressure of reading them as research

I'm expressing everything I think I know with the tutors that come in to my studio

I'm bidding my time for an opportunity to flex my abilities on an in depth scale

I'm trying to figure out what to do with all my free time.

Everything I've just written is a precursor for my artist statement that almost seems too short to be real, I don't think that I'm simplifying my practice as much as I'm realizing through some of the tutors that almost everything I do comes to a desire for genuine exchanges and subversion.

This is probably all I really need to say:

Having a good relationship that makes one feel alive is everything.
Even if we give with the knowledge that there will be a return, we can do things
in a way that doesn't require a hierarchy or make others passive; making something
so that other people feel free to express themselves.