Tabula Rosa.
That's what I think when I sit down to begin.


A clean slate.
A white canvas.
An empty page.

A blank document.



My art always begins with empty space. Not nothing at all, simply nothing tangible. There is far too much (hastily tucked or gently packed) in my head for there to be any space to begin with something that's not mine.

And, the fact of the matter is that had it not begun completely cleanly every time, I would never have begun at all.

What I mean to say is that I'm scared. That's all. I'm scared of anything I really care about. Scared because I don't want to destroy it. That's why art has to start with nothing every time. Otherwise I'd be to scared to let it go.

It's ironic, actually, now that I think of it. Ironic because I was always afraid of losing myself as well. I am my own greatest work, in all truth. A decade and a half in the making.



And then there was the accident.

I lost a great deal; many subtly organized images and several entire worlds that were quite important to my colorful disposition. That's what's singular about forgetting; one never remembers how very much they've lost. I could never know. My new Grey-scale outlook is far from simple, sharing the contrast and deep shadows with it's former colored glory. I'll never know. I've been losing my mind.
And I am scared.

But ever since, I spent so much time trying to find out who I was. Who? And then, upon my first inquire, when I didn't discover a person, but great volumes of art which described a person more vividly than a million transcripts, I realized that I should stop looking for who I was, and start looking for who I wanted to be.

Thurman's words lept from a framed collection and fettered my mind with their truth until I couldn't bear to let it go anymore than it was willing to release me: “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who are alive”.

And that, not sixteen years of experience, but losing sixteen years of experience, was how I first found myself.