Picasso said “all children are born artists; the trouble is holding onto the artist through adulthood.” My artist statement is not a story of creating life as an artist. Instead, I share a story of carving away at a life as a non-artist, slowly revealing the artist born with me. I share a story of carving away at the box life of a middle-aged American man, at the puppet, the consumer, the pudding-faced desk squatter, the ordinary man sculpted by the bureaucracy to be an obedient and contributing member of society. When the carving is finished and the complacent shell of a man is chiseled away (and that carving in NOT finished for me), what remains will be the child. What remains will be the artist.
I was born to a painter and a wood carver. They were born to singers, dancers, inventors, poets, photographers; I come from a long lineage of artists. As a child, the artist was alive and well and played naked and proud in the world, unclothed by the suffocating blanket of adulthood. My artist lived in nature. My artist lived in Garden of the Gods, on Pikes Peak, and in the crumbly granite canyons of Manitou Springs, Colorado, my hometown. My artist lived in my wide and glowing eyes, fixated on a world of seemingly endless natural beauty. My artist was full of life and madly in love.
Early public school applied the primer, the first layer of bureaucracy to the blank canvas that was my artist. My light grew more dim with each day spent in the classroom. My mind crammed with arithmetic, science, and history, leaving little time to dream and play and fall in love with my world. As a young boy on the soccer field, balls would fly by my head as I stared deeply into the yellow of a dandelion, trying desperately to hold onto my artist. But a whistle would quickly blow and a stranger would shout “get back in formation!”
I became obsessed with illusions like grades, SAT scores, and things painted and projected on me by a world intent on using me for profit. My artistic self was completely invisible at times, buried by plastic self- worth and smothered by the sadistic social climate of adolescence. I was another brick in the wall, my artist so deeply buried by layers of grey conformity that I didn’t know myself. I was miserable.
Beginning in high school and persisting through my early thirties, the thickest and most destructive application of adulthood was casted over my artist: drug and alcohol addiction. I was sold on a life hack, a shortcut, a portal that was promised to transport me from the cold mannequin of adulthood to my bright and undercover artist. It was a trick, a two way mirror, a trap door constructed by society that promised freedom and delivered only more entrapment and complacency, more layers of life molded upon my artist like thick concrete. The artist was buried deep down, its light blackened, almost.
My story almost ended here, many times. In an alley or behind the wheel of a car. Instead, a miracle happened. And then another. And soon I began the quest to uncover my artist and to unearth my dying child from the grave of the box world.
The first miracle was the surprising arrival of a dog, who showed me how to play, how to love, and how to be wild. I could see my artist through the bright eyes of Kona, a daily reminder to keep chiseling away and let my artist breathe. We moved from our urban slum in Denver to Durango, the second miracle. At first, I simply wanted to live in an outdoorsy place, a place where Kona and my artist could learn to be free again. We made friends and found community, companionship, and home in the southwest, the third miracle. Soon, I could see the light of my artist reflected in the eyes of people that loved me. For the first time in my adult life, other people could see my artist, my child, my true self. And they liked it. My gift of metaphor and poetry was well received. I discovered my niche and could see the full form of my artist squirming around like a child under thin sheets in the morning light.
The work began. The grinding and the hammering, the chiseling and the sanding. I moved to Mancos in 2017, bought a house, built a workshop, and began creating art and poetry with each second I could steal from a life intent on monetizing my existence. I took classes, learned new techniques, got up early and stayed up late. I quit drinking and doing drugs, a monumental controlled burn that sparked the rapid succession of my growing inner artist. I married the woman I love and together we gave life to our son, Banyan. Although it’s not a finished piece yet, I’m proud to say I found my artist. And each day I wake to keep my artist alive and well, to protect it from the hostility and corruption of adulthood’s plastic tomb.
Today, my artist dances in the high peaks and deserts of southwest Colorado. My artist is full of light in my tiny workshop in Mancos. My artist is alive on my lathe, chiseling and carving away at local trees and revealing the burl beneath the bark. Each bowl I create is not created at all. Instead, my chisel reveals the child within each piece of wood, my blade releases the artist within each tree. In the process, the trees hold the chisel that carves away at me. I release the artist in the tree. The tree releases the artist in me.