You know what's important? Living with passion - that's what's important. If I died tonight, I'd want people to know that I feel strongly about this matter - I feel like I have no other option but to suck the marrow out of life - every single day. Painting like you don't need to sleep - that's important. Singing loud- being moved by a song - that's important. Feeling. I mean really feeling - have you ever really... felt? Do you know what it's like? I do. It's like being invincible. It's like the whole world and its rules are walls around you and they collapse. Petals on a flower, opening up until they're splayed out flat. And it's a welling inside your chest, and you're really excited for some reason, and you're pretty sure that that reason is just the fact that you're alive - and i mean really alive. And can I tell you something? Something kind of candid? ...It's God is what it is. It can't be words, or paint or music or singing because it's essentially God. It's that thing that everyone always expresses as "unable to describe with words," and I gotta say - it's really spiritual, man. To me, it's just God welling inside my chest sometimes.
Sometimes I just gotta say stuff, so if I die tomorrow, it's out...and that's scary, but no matter how many hours I'm alive, my whole life will ultimately be a drop in the ocean. Whether my life is eighteen or eighty years, it's still small. Therefore, waking up and living a day - I mean being able to be alive - is definitely not something to be timid about. It's not something to be taken lightly. It's all you really have.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Bits from a freshman year notebook:
-"Be clear minded and self controlled so that you can pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins."
-Here's what I like: Grahm crackers. Here's what else I like: cold, cold water and sun warmth.
-"How can something not have meaning? Everything has meaning. Even lying in bed, putting the blinds down, sleeping in, and not talking to anyone has meaning."
-I kind of like mess ups.
-If a piece of art doesn't respect the audience's mind, I won't give it the time of day.
-Abstract concepts seem obscene as we pass alongside places we've destroyed in war.
-Here we are in our ivory tower, learning about art...
-Religion has become domesticated. Marx called it the opiate of the masses. It just feels good.
-communication isn't always easy.
-Oh how complicated
we've made it all out to be,
truth, religion,
spirituality...
-This is the first morning in months where I've had nothing to do. It's like something I knew long ago...
-Is geometry idealistic?
-Color is the lifeblood of painting.
-Prayer is moving the hand of God. Prayer is where ministry happens (cause we, as humans, sure don't do it.)
-To look is superficial. To see is to perceive.
-"Don't compartmentalize - divisions don't always serve you. Why say 'this is my work' and 'this isn't'?"
- I heard the saddest thing today -
"I don't like the sun."
"Why?"
"It burns."
How can you live life that way?
(There's something about the sun that tells me today is good.)
-"He looked at her like she might may be magic."
-People should never be treated as a means; they are always an end.
-Half asleep and half awake makes for a very painful day...
-It's healthy to have conversations with different kinds of people and thinkers.
-We tend to break things down into binaries. There is more than binaries. There is complexity.
-At art school we challenge and then change culture. We always think critically as artists. Is this something I want to spend the rest of my life doing? It is important to analyze myself and why I make decisions.
-You know what's crazy? Some people spend their whole life never figuring out who they are.
-Art is no less then philosophy - they dally with the same questions.
-"I've been tryin for years to grow up."
"Don't do it."
"I won't."
"Good."
-Light is the most significant thing to ever happen.
-Can the piece of art answer the questions it raises about itself? You are in charge of the way your work exists in the world and is interpreted by people.
-Calculation. Let go. Let the poet, the dreamer in you take hold it it.
- We are performers. We are communicators. Our job is to communicate. To leave the impression of our soul on the viewer.
- Make a list of ten things that you like. Your art should have at least 3-5 of this in it, or else, why do it?
-Do or do not. There is no try.
-Here's what I like: Grahm crackers. Here's what else I like: cold, cold water and sun warmth.
-"How can something not have meaning? Everything has meaning. Even lying in bed, putting the blinds down, sleeping in, and not talking to anyone has meaning."
-I kind of like mess ups.
-If a piece of art doesn't respect the audience's mind, I won't give it the time of day.
-Abstract concepts seem obscene as we pass alongside places we've destroyed in war.
-Here we are in our ivory tower, learning about art...
-Religion has become domesticated. Marx called it the opiate of the masses. It just feels good.
-communication isn't always easy.
-Oh how complicated
we've made it all out to be,
truth, religion,
spirituality...
-This is the first morning in months where I've had nothing to do. It's like something I knew long ago...
-Is geometry idealistic?
-Color is the lifeblood of painting.
-Prayer is moving the hand of God. Prayer is where ministry happens (cause we, as humans, sure don't do it.)
-To look is superficial. To see is to perceive.
-"Don't compartmentalize - divisions don't always serve you. Why say 'this is my work' and 'this isn't'?"
- I heard the saddest thing today -
"I don't like the sun."
"Why?"
"It burns."
How can you live life that way?
(There's something about the sun that tells me today is good.)
-"He looked at her like she might may be magic."
-People should never be treated as a means; they are always an end.
-Half asleep and half awake makes for a very painful day...
-It's healthy to have conversations with different kinds of people and thinkers.
-We tend to break things down into binaries. There is more than binaries. There is complexity.
-At art school we challenge and then change culture. We always think critically as artists. Is this something I want to spend the rest of my life doing? It is important to analyze myself and why I make decisions.
-You know what's crazy? Some people spend their whole life never figuring out who they are.
-Art is no less then philosophy - they dally with the same questions.
-"I've been tryin for years to grow up."
"Don't do it."
"I won't."
"Good."
-Light is the most significant thing to ever happen.
-Can the piece of art answer the questions it raises about itself? You are in charge of the way your work exists in the world and is interpreted by people.
-Calculation. Let go. Let the poet, the dreamer in you take hold it it.
- We are performers. We are communicators. Our job is to communicate. To leave the impression of our soul on the viewer.
- Make a list of ten things that you like. Your art should have at least 3-5 of this in it, or else, why do it?
-Do or do not. There is no try.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Travel
Trees sprint back, back and back
us three barrel forward
our time capsule compact
music ricochets
off of the glass
Shakespeare's words
rest in my lap
Arrows in bows
tightly pulled back
Now, in a minute
turns into past.
Schwing!
Bound Home
Salt water falls
on unfamiliar
windowpanes.
Swells of
green wallpaper waves
surround
and drown.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Artist Statement
As a community artist in inner city Baltimore, my work seeks to surface and discuss issues revolving around urban social and racial divides, both physical and perceived. I work both collaboratively and independently.
My collaborative work consists of portraiture, video, and public murals, most often painted in Baltimore City schools. I work collaboratively because I believe that the city’s residents hold the creative solutions to Baltimore’s social problems. I work collaboratively because I believe art and culture are as important to a society as any physical need. I work collaboratively because it fosters ethnic diversity and multiculturalism by building an environment of tolerance and respect.
My independent work moves fluidly between drawing, painting and poetry. The technique of my charcoal drawings is inspired by Seurat’s drawings. They depict people holding each other and are about relationships of dependency. My oil paintings are often introspective self-portraits, painted from life with a limited palette of white, burnt umber, yellow ochre and ultramarine blue. Reoccurring images in my paintings are glasses of water, circles, compositions of colored paper, and dramatic lighting.
My community and independent work could not exist without my writing. I continuously express my relationship with Baltimore through a series of poems about the city. My writing includes just as much of my community and myself as the images I make.
My collaborative work consists of portraiture, video, and public murals, most often painted in Baltimore City schools. I work collaboratively because I believe that the city’s residents hold the creative solutions to Baltimore’s social problems. I work collaboratively because I believe art and culture are as important to a society as any physical need. I work collaboratively because it fosters ethnic diversity and multiculturalism by building an environment of tolerance and respect.
My independent work moves fluidly between drawing, painting and poetry. The technique of my charcoal drawings is inspired by Seurat’s drawings. They depict people holding each other and are about relationships of dependency. My oil paintings are often introspective self-portraits, painted from life with a limited palette of white, burnt umber, yellow ochre and ultramarine blue. Reoccurring images in my paintings are glasses of water, circles, compositions of colored paper, and dramatic lighting.
My community and independent work could not exist without my writing. I continuously express my relationship with Baltimore through a series of poems about the city. My writing includes just as much of my community and myself as the images I make.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
"It is Overwhelming to Behold"
Music and male voice by Christian McKee.
Female Voice, Poem, and Video by Stephanie McKee.
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