OUT OF THE BOX - Meditations From the Studio
This newsletter is a reader-supported publication. If it has brought joy or meaning to your life, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Every subscription makes a huge difference and helps ensure that I can continue this work. Small, one-time donations are also welcome here. I spent the entire weekend in my basement studio. Hours passed by in minutes, the clock rendered irrelevant along with email, social media, my phone, and everything on the other side of the door. I forgot to eat. I acquired a blister and two puncture wounds. The Band-Aids on my hands remind me that I'm using my body again in a way that I haven't in a long time, in a way that brings me as close to peace as anything can—a feeling I'd all but forgotten. Over the last six months, which have been the most difficult of my life, my writing has been unavailable to me. Words have refused to form around my experiences to help me make sense of certain events, even if only to describe them to myself. And so they remained stuck. This weekend, I remembered that I have another way to make sense of hard things and move them through me. I'm a different person in the studio, the person I wish I could be above ground. In the studio, I exist in a state of total surrender. I never worry about a problem being unsolvable or a task too great. I rarely become frustrated. I welcome mistakes as acts of providence. This is the God I believe in. The one whose gaze I can feel while my hands are busy and my heart is calm, helping me channel tiny pieces of myself into objects that someone else might someday hold. Into objects that contain all the words that couldn't find me before. This is the first time in the ten years of my sculpture practice that I don't have an exact picture in my mind of what I'm making before I sit down to make it. I walk into my subterranean house of worship and put my faith in the process of becoming, both for the work and for the maker. The light, sometimes it washes over me Washes over me I close my eyes So I can see Make my make believe, believe in me –R.E.M. Thank you so much for the incredibly sweet messages, comments, and works of art that you’ve all sent over the past week to soothe my tender heart. I’m still going through them and crying as I do. I will be responding to each one in time. You have no idea how much they have meant to me. If this post was meaningful to you, please let me know with a like or a comment. I’m not gonna lie, it gives me a warm feeling in my heart. (Also, it will take you to the Substack page where everything looks prettier.) |
Key phrases
Older messages
Art as Balm
Tuesday, October 4, 2022
Hello Dear Ones, This week has been a hard one.
Rip-off or Homage?
Tuesday, September 27, 2022
The answer lies in how we determine what is essential to an artist's expression.
Minimal Wage
Wednesday, September 21, 2022
Do we value the artist's process or product?
Memories Made Manifest
Thursday, September 15, 2022
Willie Little constructs a multi-sensory time machine
Treats for Your Eyes, Mind, and Heart
Tuesday, August 30, 2022
Art documentaries are a form of visual and emotional storytelling is often more accessible and enjoyable than reading dense or academic texts about artists, art history, or art movements.
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