Watering can

This is an artist statement for an upcoming show- Makes me think, really is this what I am doing? I am reminded of a meeting with Mr Lewis at 4000 feet above sea water. He asked me where I was from and I replied, nowhere really, cause I didn't want to be judge by where I was from...and the truth was, I was from a lot of different places...so I replied nowhere. He said well everybody is from somewhere... so I guess this is where I'm from. Artist statement for Nullspace gallery Sept 25th 2010

I would like to be able to squeeze this feverish body of work into a comprehensive narrative, but the rules of engagement wont allow for a grand unified theory of post it doodle ism or modern/post modern explanations. For the sake of understanding however, there is a term I came across recently that has helped me to frame the activity that has motivated my creative faculties for the past eighteen years of making things. I found a phrase while reading about the cognitive development of children. There is a stage where the children construct a paracosms (unique detailed imaginary world) I try to think back to the time when I was about eight or nine. Images of what my own sense of play involved emerge and I come up with visual chunks: plastic pink and green robots, some space themed figures, some based on actual movie characters, (some obviously too cheap for legitimate product licensing), a train set, and a few bricks of modeling clay. My memories never actually coalesce into a distinct story or include consistent plotlines, characters or settings. The world that grew up on those fields of rolled linoleum became more about how forms navigate environments. The story lines that came with specific characters were there to justify relational logistics. A bootleg R2D2 in a grain car, a wind up motor from a dune buggy modified into a trike chopper with an amorphous clay chassis. The meaning under scrutiny is ambiguous at best and yet the memories persist. I think I am trying to establish a continuum of base influences and the skeletal remains on which to hang new meat, flesh out a livable paracosm from the present and not solely on the sinew of meaning specified by memory. Time has a way of distilling childhood. This signature of relationships I was exploring then shows in the work I am still producing. In fact, a lot of what I do is still very much about play and invention