Gem

Heart pounding, I tried to conceal my excitement, and I will confess I wasn’t very good at it. Entering the gallery just before the public walked in for the opening of the Resident & Instructor’s Show, I immediately spotted two of my three submissions, right there on the main wall. The MAIN wall!  (Did I mention they were on the main wall?) 

My first instinct was to flee to the safety of my studio upstairs, where I could jump up and down in a silent scream behind a closed door; but instead I paused at the bottom of the stairs to ask myself what was so wrong with basking in full view?  Here I was in my moment in the spotlight. And while I usually abhor being under one, I knew this particular one begged for reveling; for this was unanticipated recognition at a milestone I had surmised would pass in relative peace.

I hurried back to the display, whipped out my phone and snapped a sloppy photo, commemorating some delicious self-pride I usually don’t allow myself to ingest. And as I lingered, leaking joy, I was told my work had nabbed the attention of the show’s curator, who appreciated the time and patience it takes to create in my medium.

My people came out to support me on that cold and rainy January night. I invited only a few. Feeling perennially unworthy of self-promotion, and afraid my work wouldn’t make it into the show (even though work submitted by every artist was accepted), I didn’t want the word to get out too broadly. I clutched my safety net, reaching out to those who knew me before I ever believed in myself enough to believe this was possible.  The friendships that budded and bloomed among us, angst-ridden, fun-loving, insecure teenagers trying to find our way; the people I shared my wildest dreams with, and the ones who couldn’t be prouder when I realize them.

   

I’ve spent the last year experimenting as a resident artist. My work has been constrained for what seems like forever, limited in my home by a small work space and in my heart by an even smaller tolerance for vulnerability hangovers, that sick feeling washing over us after we’ve revealed the truest parts of ourselves to others. I dared to “go big” at the urging of a fellow artist and friend.  A canvas mounted on my studio wall, I began piecing works together with my door and my soul wide open, inviting in the art enthusiasts who tour the gallery to observe and question. This environment couldn’t help but groom me to muster the guts to talk about work so intensely personal. Those who have watched me work unwittingly help me rehearse; to get comfortable talking about what I do, how I do it, and what it means to me.  They’ve prepared me for this moment of public scrutiny, allowed me to write and edit a story I can tell in plain language with confidence, a story people can relate to.

 

Art is a foreign language to many, even those possessing a tremendous appreciation for it. Who hasn’t studied at least one piece of art, befuddled, and concluded they could easily make it themselves at home in a few minutes time?  Collisions of color and pattern and texture affixed with a seemingly incongruent price or tagged NFS (not for sale) because the artist simply cannot part with a piece that may look like a crazy mash-up to any given viewer. Art is meant to deliver a message that’s often hazily conveyed, with flowery or abstract statements deliberately shrouded to protect a fragile maker. As artists it’s not that we don’t know what this work means to us, it’s that we are petrified we will sound stupid, or maybe too human, telling you about it.

What surprises me on this night, although it probably shouldn’t, are the individuals who acknowledge these deeply held fears, the people who call out my bravery, those who recognize that I’ve chosen to put my heart on my sleeve, willing to risk stumbling through an awkward explanation of self-expression, deeply buried yet starved to be unearthed.

What makes it to the main wall, in my estimation, is what’s deemed fresh and new and interesting and different.  Not the work that’s made as an attempt to please the public, work that’s made with stirring intent to please its unabashedly broken maker.