This seems like an impossible thing to write. That's an embarrassing admission to have to make, especially since I'm an ex-writing teacher and someone who's written and published on a few different subjects. Making art is one thing. Writing about it is something entirely different. The art very often comes naturally. Sometimes, when the creative mood is good and I'm moved by the spirit, the pictures just seem to appear, one after the other. Now, as I'm sitting down during one of those sober and analytical moments-the opposite of being moved by any sort of spirit-I need to be able to reflect on what I do when I make my pictures. I'd like to put it all into words, reveal my influences, discuss my art is some sort of context, talk about how I'm self-taught
For as long as I can remember, I've been a dark person, moved by mysterious passions. I'm afraid that that sentence sounds a little too much like a confession. I've got to establish the right sort of mood here. Perhaps I shouldn't be so personal?
OK, how about this? I don't fully know why I draw and paint pictures. It just sort of happens (because I feel a deep need to draw or paint) and very often the result is a bit wild and crude and flaming with color and asymmetrical and so on. I have to say that my pictures are not "pretty," but some people find them "intense" or even "aggressive." I certainly don't plan them to be intense or aggressive or whatever they turn out to be. That is the point: Art, at least the way I do it, is mostly about not planning. It is about preparing the proper mood and then losing one's self in the creative moment to the extent that there is no need to have a plan. In fact, during those moments of creativity, the plan, any plan, often gets in the way.
Well, I can see that this "artist's statement" is a failure. I haven't said exactly what I wanted to say because I didn't know what I wanted to say in the first place. More often than not, it's important to have a plan in mind when sitting down to write.