Hey, it’s “me” again.

I guess that’s part of the “point” of this all, after all - the “artist” statement.

Back in college (about say 19ish years ago as of 2026), I used to tell most who inquired about who i “was” that “all I care about is Poetry.”

I meant it as a metaphor then, and it’s come back to me in recent years.

I’ll try to keep this brief. If you like reading my writing, head over to the BLOG (link).

But so the thing is, I also took some psychedelics back then too. They did wonders for my psyche, most notably in dissolving my jealousy, which was basically my “achilles heel” or “self-undoing” however you choose to frame it. It’s both, but as an “artist” making a “statement,” let’s focus on the latter.

Anyway, those psychedelics also made it very clear to me that “me” is also “us.” As they say John Donne wrote - “no man is an island".

This is the paradox of art that I enjoy messing with. As such I love using symbolic and iconographic images - charged symbols, and disrupting their context to point out how fragile our conceptions of things seem to be (or rather exposing the fact that “I” fear the world in that fashion).

I have gotten about the mixedest reviews I can conceive of as a result of art I’ve assembled and displayed. It’s been called both “life-affirming” and “mere pornography.”

Hence, the “read first” for this statement. I want you to know going in that there are naked bodies in this stuff.

There is a hope in this stuff that spirit can triumph over the capitalist and moralist colonization of our relationships with our bodies.

“I” build this “art” out of the “culture” that “I” find. In many ways I=we. I used to “self”-refer as “*” to highlight the incidental, incremental and intersectional nature of Being.

(As “my” belief currently stands though) Everything is Paradox. While “I” learned (am learning) the “common sense” and social “norms” (Stories) of life from the context of my growing, there are things that some aspect of my own Spirit, however large or small a piece of whatever-that-is is (to “me,” that spirit doesn’t care at all about “accuracy” of measure (the phrases “a spoonful weighs a ton” (Flaming Lips) and “the unbearable lightness of being” (Milan Kundera) come to mind). So yeah, even if these pieces are reckonings and fantasies that others have seeded in my head, I am willing to be somewhat (and for most intents and purposes) “I,” whatever it is that necessitates that. It is a bit of a metaphysical problem, which to me (forgot the quotes that time - I’m getting toooo comfortable *spooky music*), seems like it’s actually a very physical subject with physical and exact (albeit Paradoxical) characteristics, which, albeit changing, can be located and measured with proper instruments (undiscovered?) at a very (very-very lol to my english teachers of the past who disallowed our use of the word “very” (which I totally am grateful for) specific moment. (My opinion is that because there’s a “meta” prefix, people have lost the very obvious anchor of physicality that this “problem” rests in. But I digress. Perhaps I lost you.

I just want you to be warned you’ll see some skin and some of the images may have what appear to be sacrilegious intimations in them. There’s a reason for that that is important to what feels like the “me” part of “me” which is the place in the world (“my” world - ie the ideas where most of my relationships exist) where I feel like there’s an absence of representation.

An example will help - take the image of Jesus (subtly) offering the (adoring) child a cigarette. My world is saturated with the “Jesus is/was the best person ever” etc etc. “Smoking is bad” etc. etc. “Kids are good",”Jesus saves us".. etc, yet also, the whole commercial world appears to have been structured on the selling of cigarettes and the images of masculinity and virility in the men (and women (“sexiness” it was) who smoked them. Granted, this was bigger in the 70’s which i think is a really understudied decade in regard to media (which is one of “my” major interests) (this is collage stuff btw which I guess is part of my interest in media - collages are built of images I didn’t “green light” put into a context where hopefully the assumptions and assimilations are jarred). (Maybe I’m trying to “teach” us how to “read” images?) Everything is for sale, as far as I know, either for your dollar or your heart (more dollar, or “dollars", plural).

When charged images are the stimulus, charged images are often the response lol at how well we all know that yet so often behave without that in mind, we mad yellers of psalms. uhhh bro u ok?

But yeah, if (the usual) images of Jesus are so important to our conceptions within the exclusive framework of “oneness” with “God” or the offer of redemption/salvation/GOOD WILL, then (to me) the faith is immature. Hence the iconography bit. It works on many levels. It’s not about the “man” or the icon, or the printed image of a vagina or not a vagina that makes morality or “good” character. If we can’t enjoy our faith or bodies while also knowing they are commercialized and misrepresented for financial and political gain, then we haven’t understood them yet on a personal level and we’re still “saps” or “marks” or “prisoners”. Humor is the gentle way of illuminating the darkness, given the other appropriate conditions to do so. That which has become us needen’t have it’s shallowness in image preserved or protected. The fact that the images are produced and reproduced so extensively suggests perhaps that we haven’t actually understood them at all. Maybe I’m trying to take apart the narrative that says we still need to study this material (suggesting we don’t understand it), so we can move on to a more equitable and supportive world. Maybe (as I’ll mention later, sort of) what stands out in the pieces has more to do with “you” than it does with “me.” I’m usually aiming for “us,” but I accept that that’s not always possible. Maybe you’ve encountered me mentioning that Georgia O’Keefe quote I love so: “praise and criticism go down the same drain.” (It’s more of an ambition for me than a fact lol). I also just want us to not be prisoners so that we can actually act on our own behalf and perpetuate things we actually love and care about rather than perpetuate fake antidotes to the scary fact that this lifetime we experience can only be believed in an exclusively personal way, which *can* be shared, to some degree. Ha. I mentioned the Paradox thing. For kindness I’ll write “smart by being dumb”; “eternal through embracing transience”.

Ok.

Well, that should be a charitable enough “warning” for you, I guess. There’s a big gap between “thinking” and doing. I encourage the most exotic depths of thought possible, while remaining wary that thought can engender desire, which can (I’m told (and believe)) cause “suffering.” (Honestly, I think that’s a hella sound philosophy. I like it bc it’s kinda just logic and not moralistic.. anyway). But yeah, what we think and what we actually do are vastly different phenomena. I think my “art” is much more intended to provoke thought and undermine what I perceive as messaging inconsistencies than it is to assert anything in particular. I’ll be sure to offer some indication that that has changed, if it indeed do.

Thanks!