I returned to the mill I worked at back in high school. Early drawings were done on scrap wood. I'd sneak off to the bathroom with a piece of wood. At this point on the journey, I was on "tables," meaning I laid doors down on wood "horses" (double A frames), and stapled trim on their jambs. When I moved to the position of door jam machine operator, there was a large vertical wood ceiling support post there that I fabricated my first drawing board on.
Having to struggle to make a living while trying to hold onto my childhood dream for art prompted a series of figures boxed in a frame. There were hundreds of these drawings. I was searching high and low for a light in the tunnel, an escape from this box I felt trapped in. The drawing to the lower right corner shows the beginnings of a solution - another world was appearing in the background with a few horizontal strokes of ocean. The shore would become the stage where I could enter my own personal myth. The restrictive box frame was starting to bend.
The above triptych on mill stationary poignantly expresses my frustrating situation of not having a studio. Obtaining a studio was proving to be too farfetched. Without any money, and living alternately in an attic, cars, and on the street, the factory floor was becoming my "studio." I didn't have the resources to try and make a living doing art and so here I was on the factory floor with a dream in my heart and a long upward battle ahead just to keep it there.
In the 1st panel, I scale a cliff to near my brush. The middle panel shows a foot coming down on my hand, and the 3rd panel shows the brush just beyond my grasp. The next step could be presumed to be the long descent back down with a hurt hand. Or something worse.
An unknown symbol emerged from the chaotic frenzy of trying to draw on the assembly-line. The symbol had a numinous nature about it, and proved to be a powerful aid in my art journey.
Perhaps it arose from the unconscious as a transformation symbol in response to the demands of the assembly-line to draw fast.
For many months, I worked in a frenzy, drawing the unknown symbol, alongside a feminine image (when I embarked on this journey I entered the unknown world with an identifiable symbol - in this way I would not completely lose touch with the familiar), until both were broken down into separate pen "riffs," like the parts of a production line were broken into smaller tasks, and repeated over and over. Seeing how repetition led to a better performance on the assembly-line, I applied that "practice makes perfect" mantra to my art. Once my subject matter was narrowed down to just two symbols, the stage was set. The unknown symbol had a numinous nature - I felt a strong compulsion to draw it. It was if I was slowly unlocking huindreds of years of dynamic energy from this ancient form, that up to this point was a mere static shape, only used in writing. The powerful symbol was later found to have connections to a hieroglyph and it seemed to direct the various elements into a balanced composition, of which it was only a fragment. I became a willing accomplice in this journey, lead in part, by the power contained and released by an ancient hieroglyph.
When it was apparent that the symbol couldn't evolve anymore - it had reached its dynamic conclusion - I felt frustrated, thinking my intense efforts might have been in vain. It was a difficult point in the journey. On the one hand, I felt if I abandoned my quest then it would die forever, like a plant accustomed to daily watering suddenly left to rot. On the other hand, I felt I was doomed to keep on repeating the same drawing, already repeated over a thousand times, with no progress ahead. Either way, I was stuck. I chose to keep on drawing the same 2 shapes. A revelation was coming that would give me encouragement that I was on the right track.
I had for some time resisted the temptation to seek a meaning to this numinous, unknown symbol, until the time felt ripe. When it did, it was as if I was being led. I went directly to the book shelf containing the book and opened to the page containing the hieroglyph that contained the unknown symbol. The hieroglyph had a masculine meaning, which suggested that I was engaged in the play of opposites, as the other symbol had a known feminine meaning. The revelation was of tremendous encouragement to continue on this seemingly dead end path.
The revelatory hieroglyph with its four loops, would over a decade later maintain a presence in my work, appearing as the root structure shape in some of my best drawings. This connection was discovered only after reaching a certain stage in piecing together the journey. The drawing below shows the four loops and the two open ends
In the factory, a glimpse through the loft doors would fuel a passion for daydreaming. You could see the sun set from here. Train tracks were just outside the yard's barbed wire fence. Hearing the passing trains would spark the imagination and I'd muse about catching a ride into the sunset with only a pen in my pocket. To the lower right is my hammer that I used to drive 8 penny galvanized nails through fingerjoint and clear door jambs on the assembly-line. Above my hammer is scribbled a poem.
I came upon the edge - the iconic leaping off point - the precipice. Prior progress stopped here. It was at once both an end and a new beginning. Going backwards was not an option. It was like looking at the back of that old passing train and dreaming of hopping aboard for a ride into unchartered adventures. Looking down at the tumultuous dark waters, I must of wondered in this new world, how much worse could drowning in the dark unknown be than floundering in the light of day.
Some themes on the journey were done in series as I was repeatedly experiencing the theme drawn in actuality. No, I wasn't repeating this theme of being down because I was trying to fulfill an order for a limited edition series - I was struggling to get up, to lift myself up from the dismal view that my dream for art was over - that for now on, the factory - the daily grind was all I had to look forward to. Was there no way out of this vicious cycle that had swallowed so many people into a black hole of a wasteland? Who but me could see my ship coming in? Was I but a foolish romantic believing in something that just didn't exist? Was giving up and throwing in the towel the only acceptable choice? I couldn't - I just couldn't abandon this dream...however pathetic - however raw and uncomely the drawings - it was my spirit speaking. How much longer could I endure going nowhere by giving my all. Damit, I am an artist! I can't give up the fight!!
It was a magical moment , long yearned for, when I held that brush in my hand, raising it solemnly into the sky like a torch in the darkness. Finally, the brush was mine - I could paint. My art journey was alive once again - I didn't need a studio - it was all right here on this paper that I drew on - endless miles of the richest mythic terrain for my art adventure to unfold. Although obstacles would continue to challenge my pursuit of art, I now had more control over it.
Early in my art journey, my intention was to create sketches that I would one day turn into paintings. But, as time passed, it became apparent that I was not going to be able to afford a studio any time soon. Thus, the factory floor became my "studio." After a period of reluctance to adapt, I tapped into a mythical landscape where limitations were a construct of the mind as was my potential - I could render the outcome. On paper, my dreams could come true. No longer was this journey about painting. It was about an artist fighting for the survival of a dream.
Having gained possession of the brush, I realized I needed something more - I needed a sword. Using the power of art to personify obstacles as figures, I was able to level the playing field and fight back. The factory beat of staple guns, chop saws, and machinery, helped set the stage for the the battlefield I was fighting on.
Those monsters we drew as children were often left just as they were - monsters free to roam our world. We were half-way there though, if we wanted to defeat them. We had already personified them in a form. But, we often left the hero out of the picture. As an adult, I drew upon that childhood subject matter, but added the hero. This "regression" to childhood, ironically, provided the means to progress. If I could defeat the obstacles, I could move forward.
It was real to me - this battle. I had had my share of defeat, but now I felt I had some control over my destiny. The world was opening up and for once I was living my own personal myth. This was no longer mere paper - it was a world so rich and life-restoring. What did I care if I didn't sell a single work - I had found the gold - my life adventure had awakened. And that was priceless.
This series constitutes the center of my composition. The opposites from the earlier and future series are united here. It is the nucleus of a 4-part union of primal opposites. The play of opposites engaged in during earlier points on this path were united in this passionate figurative series. I could feel an intensity not yet experienced in the journey. My range of feeling was dramatically expanding.
I took great strides to make sure the pools of purple wash didn't spill as I lowered the drawings down from my drawing board to the concrete factory floor. It was a miracle that the blowing fans, dust, and co-worker trafiic, didn't disrupt the wet areas during the drying process. Going about my tasks on the assembly-line, I was mesmerized by how the warm company coffee released these enchanting blues, greens, and yellows, from black ink interacting with the paper. It was a little like watching a wet photo come to life in a dark room. This series marked the center of my art journey, and the center was love.
When obstacles were no longer blocking my vision, I could glimpse my ship coming in. There was little encouragement in the factory - no teacher to assist, no peers to offer feedback, no guidance counselors...there was only belief in this journey that I had embarked upon. That ship was heading my way and I held onto that image like a candle in the darkness - there is not a more encouraging symbol to me than this.
To believe in your vision, knowing in your heart that your dream will come true, is a phenomenal power. All signs could say "It isn't going to happen." But, that one glimmer of hope that you held on to and nourished with devotion and effort, nullifies the effects of the naysayers. How could their exterior negative belief that you couldn't do something be more powerful than your internal positive belief that you could? How could those "sticks and stones" break through your solid shield of faith?
I had fought giants. Now with new insight gained from the journey, I discovered peace. Staring at the sea, I meditated and reflected. This series was immediately calming. Each series that arose, highlighted a certain point in the journey, relating to past series and those to come. These archetypal symbols helped restore balance.
With a change of management at the mill, personalized workstations were destroyed, that included my original drawing board. Hammers came down fast. Before I knew it, my bundled drawings stored below, were tossed to the dumpster. Of course, I dived in after them. Afterwards, I stored them in a friend's trailer. One day after work, as I was headed towards the trailer, the closer I got, the more drawings I found outside of it. They were burned, and doused with house paint and varnish, hardening them together. The windows of the trailer were busted out, and upon entering, my drawings where scattered everywhere, destroyed as described above. The non-working toilet with murky dirty water was stuffed with drawings. Elsewhere, I salvaged what I could and loaded them in my vehicle which had become my home.
After the dust settled from the destruction of my drawing board, I mounted a smaller, more discrete one at my workstation. I ripped my paper in half to adapt - here, the rip has meaning intrinsically linked to my unfolding journey, not a mere rip for rip's sake. Each drawing from this series will have a unique rip on at least one side, and many of them were done on the backsides of old order froms from the factory. Perhaps, one of the most endearing moments in that factory was when I would find a stack of old order froms on my drawing board. Someone was offering support from within.
I had already adapted to the temporal constraints of drawing inbetween assembling doors on the line - now I was fighting spatial constraints. In addition to this fight series, I expanded my sense of space with architectural drawings, and continued my fast-paced abstract rip drawings, which would later mature into a unique dynamic drawing style, carrying with it that sense of urgency from the assembly-line. Audibly, you can even hear vestiges of chop saws as I cut through the paper with my ink "sword."
It's been said that trials and tribulations along the journey occur in 3's. It proved so in my case around this period. My drawing board was destroyed, my drawings stored in a trailor were burned from a vandalism, and after a drawing session at a fast-food restaurant, I was physically assaulted by a gang, and my new drawings were ground into the pavement with their sneakers.
Above is a photo of me on the factory floor. To my left is my 2nd drawing board (next to the blue ear protection). The rip on my shoulder was from moving doors. In the background a sign reminds workers that "Your hands & your eyes are our best tools. Protect them."
In the truest sense, I had gone back to the drawing board, and re-learned Line, Shape, Form, Texture, Etc. from scratch, in an environment where the primal ingredients of space and time were constricted. Thus the art, in order to survive, had to adapt. So, to the beat of pneumatic machinery and chop saws, I nurtured a dream, often, in only seconds-long installations. This pulling art up by its boot straps out of its chaotic origins, rendered something honest and tell-tale about art in general - it revealed the power of art in a survival mode not often highlighted. f
How would artists ever know the magical shape of their art journey, if they allowed difficulty and tribulations re-direct their unfolding path? If they lost their center, how would continuity and connections to the center be preserved? Constantly changing their art focus like changing stations on a TV, and creating work for instant gratification, financial rewards, and whim, the potency of art creation's ability to develop an artist's character through perserverance, is weakened. While exploration and experimentation is vital in the search for a path to stick to, the danger is in allowing passing infatuations - those "jack of all trades" art pursuits - to replace the more meaningful depths that require committment via love and devotion.
I was no longer working at the mill, but years later, I was still working on my dynamic drawing style that originated in the mill. I drew at fast-food restaurants, something I had been doing on my lunch breaks years earlier. Often I would put the name of the restaurant on the drawing and number it in a series. This one was done at McD's and is #11 (see upper right corner of drawing) in the session.
Back in the factory days, I had made a promise to myself to win a show in New York without the luxury of a studio, so after leaving the factory, I drew at fast-food restaurants - I was a fast-food artist.
To make the deadline to a national art competition in Soho, I took a trip to New York and slipped my submission under the door of the gallery. Back in Virginia, I received a call from the gallery announcing I had won 2nd place in the contest and would be awarded a solo show. I was drawing at McD's when I got the news.
The space was a small cubicle, to the back side of the main exhibit. Nothing sold, but an ole blue-collar dream finally came true.
In retrospect, the drawings from this period had a long way to go in developing it to my present mature style, but after thousands of drawings, it seemed I was making a little progress.
Early on in the journey, I was stuck drawing in dynamic interplay an unknown symbol and the feminine form. After discovering the meaning of the unknown form from a hieroglyh, I realized I was engaged in the play of opposites. Years later, this series of feminine forms emerged in the journey. These were not merely fashion drawings - they were the front-facing forms that completed the backsides of the feminine form begun over a decade earlier. Color had finally emerged, heralding the coming to fruition of the journey, as the colorful stage known as the peacock's tail, was said to do in the works of alchemy.
These drawings were created at fast-food restaurants; some even sport the restaurant receipt, usually from the purchase of coffee used to mix the colors.
"Samurai" was a breakthrough piece. Frustration and other seemingly distracting emotions can be channeled into beauty. The ending release rip towards the top, left a scratch through the glass dining table I was using to draw on. The pen was ruined, but at that point in the drawing, ink wasn't needed - the pen had become a sword.
"Samurai" was selected by the juror, Laura Hoptman, for a Merit Award, in the 21st International Show at the Art Center of New Jersey. Ms Hoptman was Assistant Curtator in MOMA's Department of Drawings from 1995 until 2001, when she was named Curator and Head of the Department of Contemporary Art at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburg, PA. Since 2006, she has served as Senior Curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City.
"The International Show is a global cousin to the Whitney Biennial show of American art." - Dan Bischoff of the Star-Ledger newspaper.
The art opening had great attendance. Two of my drawings made it into the show (including "Samurai"shown here). They were exhibited next to the Best in Show work, a large photo realist work in pencil. The juxtaposition of my seconds-long drawing, with one that may have taken up to a year to do, emphasized the temporal aspect of drawing through comparison. Yet, in actuality, there was literally thousands of drawings invested in my fast-paced drawing style, before arriving at this breakthrough, so measuring time gets tricky. How many swings went into a baseball player's homerun hit? Beyond the somewhat superficial element of time based on execution of a work of art, was the fact that my piece presents a distortion of space (via the corrugation of the paper) by time. The impact of the sped up pen release repositioned the prior ink marks, altering the space-time gestalt, while simultaneously showing the before and after with the black negative space beneath the dangling aftermath.
On the road back to Virginia from the show, the bearings went out on the front end, requiring my wife and I to pull off the road. As luck would have it on that Sunday afternoon, a stranger down the road had a shop in his garage and was able to fix the problem with a weld.
One of the hardest parts of the journey is to bring the vision experienced to a communicable form. For years, my drawings were moved around, until I finally got them their own room. It was a daunting task to try and piece the journey together in such a small room, but I used the yard, the living room floor, etc. I couldn't continue cracking that door and thinking about what could have been - I had to start pulling one drawing at a time out and selecting the ones I wanted to use to tell this story. For a while, it seemed futile. But as I began developing a 3-D exhibition model, progress began. If you just begin it, things will just start falling into place, no matter how overwhelming the project appears to be. Just keep at it, and don't let it slip back - this is your dream. Use all your might. We can't bring back our friends and family once gone, but we can revive our dreams and visions...if we but stay the course.
If you can't get an exhibition, don't stop. There are no cant's in this business of inspiring. If you make it through the thin of the journey, your work will inspire. For several years, I worked on this model exhibition, digging through a cluttered room of drawings. Money kept going towards art show entry fees, and living expenses fell behind, while rejection letters kept piling up. But don't lose focus of who you are doing this for - you are doing it for the benefit of the world, and that's why you give it your all. It's greatness is fueled by your dedication to it. What you put into it will increase what you and others get from it. The thought that your Herculean efforts will be in vain, is one reason for not giving up.
It could appear that you just won't be getting that solo show your work deserves. But, there are other ways to get your show in the door. My exhibition model was featured in my video, "Brush with Myth," in which I walk viewers through a personal myth. I used whatever I could find to tell the story, including unpretentious, broken, fabricated, re-purposed, props. The video was juried into the Huntington Museum of At's Exhibition 280.