Artist statement
I began making art because I thought I didn’t have anything of value. Oddly enough, however, I had a mother who supported such things as my invention of a language at 5. That's not really poverty of any sort.
Thinking has always been troublesome to me. It runs off through the wilderness. It’s late to school. It makes assumptions and it makes a fool out of me. It’s cumbersome and it’s dangerous so I’ve learned to distrust it. I like instincts and intuition better than thinking. I like feelings and hunches. I don’t like explanations, but I do ask a lot of questions. I want to know what you believe. Do you believe in sin? Did you ever see visions or know someone’s story without hearing it? I get a lot of information, but I process it in huge bundles and bales. I never remember the story, but I remember how it felt.
Consequently, I trust whatever is effortless, delightful or seems interesting to me. I like the in between of things. The not-thing, the unmatched pairs, the horizontal groundline that flies off the handle, the world on a tilt.
Photographs are like that for me. That's why I take them.
I’ve been told I speak the language of ‘psychosis’. I don’t know about that, but I do seem to understand it. It is beautiful, poetic, tender and startlingly real. It comes from the forbidden zone where polite people aren’t supporse to go. I say the hell with that. I love it there. My Art keeps me ‘grounded’ in that forbidden zone. I believe that’s where not only powerful art comes from, but where real power, authentic personal power comes from.
I’ve spent my adult life studying art—mostly the art of unknown artists and most of them “mentally ill” or severely traumatized. They seemed more exciting to me than the masters. They were messier and I liked that. They lived at full tilt. They lived in instinct and raw feeling. I got it. I have always gotten that kind of art. It bypasses thought and for me and my incorrigible mind, that is freedom and cause for celebration.
Art is a way of life. being an artist is a way of choosing life and of choosing the kind of life you’ll live. It is an act of will deeply rooted in the mystical and magical. It makes the unseen seen and the intangible something you can hold. I choose the margins and the intensity. I choose compositions that seem haphazard. They never are. All this chaos really isn’t.
Every madness has its truth. The camera catches mine. It comes to me like breathing. If I didn’t need sleep or food I would keep clicking. It’s not work. It is living. It is the best living I’ve ever done.
I left my invented language behind. I dressed paper dolls in my own designs. I thought I had nothing so I made sure I had plenty. I created worlds, particularly amazement parks. I continued these activities because they healed my child pain. When I found my parents’ brownie camera one day at 6 I started this picture making business. It’s been on ever since.
I was a ‘disturbed’ child-- always too energetic, always too loud or fast or late or independent or needy—always just at a tilt and fumbling for connection. I had to learn to sit on my hands to be still otherwise I’d want to dance about the penmanship lesson as it rolled and scrolled and pranced across the page. I wanted to draw angels because no one else could see them. I wanted to teach others how to levitate like I did at night floating up over my bed, swimming in the air. At school They wanted me to stop talking, stop laughing , stop dancing, stop coloring. I refused and I was a good student anyway.
If I had to leave you one thing about art and all the business of art-making, I’d simply say this: hang onto art as hard as you can. It will save you.
