Artist Statement Overhaul

 

Part of my resolution for 2015 has been to make it a habit to update my website monthly. I am starting to come to dread the 30th of each month. I use Other People's Pixels and adding new stuff is pretty hassle free, but coming up with new stuff… that is the hard part.

I need to rewrite my artist statement, not revise, but a total rewrite. A lot of artist statements are full of stale bullshit; it's a cliche, like paint covered pants, body odor, and keeping your own schedule that does not include clocks. There tends to be an unwritten, but implied, "fuck you for making me write this" in most artist statements I read.

I feel that I have to be clever. Being clever can be exhausting. Here is what I have so far:

Several years ago, while eating a chicken sandwich, I came across the quote, “Food is essential to life, therefore make it great.” I thought it was a wonderful quote, which really played into the ideas that I was pursuing in my artwork. Unfortunately, I was at a Chick-Fil-A, and the words I was reading were those of S. Truett Cathy, a fact that now carries a lot of baggage. Baggage that, in some ways is essential to my work.

Food is essential to life, but it is also social and political. Every time we eat, we make choices about who we are, and who we are not, and who we aspire to be.

The tribe we chose to be a part of.

Religion, food restrictions— Sacrament (an outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual divine grace), who can receive communion? Communion is received, not taken. The Holy Eucharist is the most important if the seven sacraments because in this and in no other sacrament we receive the very body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.

You are what you eat

Because of Chick-Fil-A’s anti-gay stance, as a liberal red-blooded American, I feel that it is my duty to say that I never wanted to eat their greasy, disgusting chicken anyway. However, that would be a lie. I really enjoyed their chicken sandwiches and waffle fries and was even willing to suffer through their choice in horrible christian rock music to eat it. Out of respect to my friends, I don’t eat Chick-Fil-A anymore, and I am sure that probably pains me more that it pains the Cathy family. In the meantime, I hope that Arby’s never does anything that would cause us to have to part ways

Food can be aspirational. It taps into our feelings of health, safety, guilt, fear, happiness, success, and well-being.

 I've also been reading: