there’s a good road
i don’t – and have never – given anyone money who’s selling their lifestyle {usually while pretending they’re selling something else}.
soaking in a tub in Paris.
sitting in a beach house in Mexico.
standing in front of an expensive car.
wearing designer anything.
or tossing around six-figure-this-or-that.
for me, what they’re selling isn’t interesting.
it’s also often not real.
citing lineage, calling power
speaking to our lineage – acknowledging it, calling to it, being called from it – is an act of integrity.
we acknowledge who we are + where we come from.
we speak to the soil in which we plant ourselves.
and to the medicine that grows in the land we call home.
it says we know we didn’t come to this moment, this self, in a wholly self-generated sense.
we didn’t create ourselves purely on our own.
because we can’t.
we are part of a line that shaped-and-shapes us.
we hono{u}r that by speaking to it.
keep making marks
i threw away six pieces of art the other day.
art i’d worked on for days.
i’m working on a new technique for image transfers.
and i didn’t love how the pieces looked.
so, i threw them out.
that’s not the meaningful part.
i’ve thrown away a lot of art over the years.
the part that matters is what i did next.
which was to immediately – minutes after tossing the pieces – start eight new works.
pricing is a transmission
every facet of your everything is a transmission.
what you do.
how you do it.
why you do it.
clear carriers of message + meaning.
which is why being clear on + coherent with your transmission is fundamental.
the price you put on your work transmits your intention + purpose.
a call-and-response around who-and-why-and-when-and-how.
i see so much communal incoherence around the relationship between money + our mark making.
we have a lot to talk about there.
and we will.
being alive is art
being alive is art.
art isn’t something you do.
or something you make.
it’s not a specific form.
or even any form, in fact.
it’s not what hangs on your walls or sings through your speakers or fills the shelves of your library.
art is existing.
it’s bothering to be alive at all.