My fifteen year old son loves to torment me by mentioning, with respect to my work, a comment which was made during the opening of “The Box Projects” in July of 2005. In parting, a woman refered to my pieces as “clever” and my son thought this was hilarious.
It struck a cord with me as well which seems ironic since I do consider my work more akin to parlour magic than high art.
When a fellow artist recently visited my work space and saw what I was working on, she asked, “What's this?” My heart sank as I replied, “It's just a paper cup I'm making.”
I had spent the previous week very excited about the possibilities inherent in my paper “test” and to hear myself describe it in these terms reduced it to what I, no doubt, secretly feared could be the perception of “others”.
In my work , I strive to be true to the process. I honestly don't give a lot of thought to what others will think of individual pieces. What is of interest to me, is the process inherent in story making, the revisiting of my own assumptions, the maliability of "truth" in the things I remember.
This brings criticism (from both within and without). Technique aside – all my “paintings” have more to do with cutting in and filling, for example, because of what I learned while painting door jams – the content of my work may very well just be a re-hashing of things best forgotten.
I really don't believe that, but I often think that. And I often, both in my head and in crowds of people I love, I say so.
My brain is often a blur with questions about art, and I guess what it really boils down to is a question about what it really is. Why is it important? Is it? What is its relationship to knowledge? Is it possible for it to be a way of knowing? Is making paper cups important?
Perhaps only a clever person would know for sure.
