The other night, while driving home I noticed a billboard that said, “Feel this comfortable with your bank?” The words “feel” and “comfortable” caught my attention because I constantly ponder what it means to embody contentment. I pulled over to frame “feel this”. As I found myself cropping out most of the words including “comfortable” for a stronger composition, I was enthralled thinking about what “this” really means, especially when paired with the command to “feel”. Being that I have great interest in visual, written and spoken language, I immediately looked up Webster’s definition of the word “this”: (pronoun) the one nearer or more immediately under observation or discussion. This definition allowed me to revel on the ways we are vulnerable, what we focus on, and what remains unexamined (including the definition of a word that we use every day). Full of distractions, our routines constantly pull us away from seeing clearly. I am driven by a desire to study microcosms and make artwork that creates awareness that equally shrinks and expands perspectives.
When I drove by the billboard the very next afternoon, the serendipitous nature of the world again reminded me to pay attention to my observant calling. I saw the shadow of a tree on the grey paint where the advertisement sat just the night before: a bit of Barbara Krueger meets Andy Goldsworthy meets Rudy Burckhardt. I absolutely could “feel this” with great reverence: the value and need for this level of awareness. Observations like this fill me to the brim--my muse, in fact.
When I drove by the billboard the very next afternoon, the serendipitous nature of the world again reminded me to pay attention to my observant calling. I saw the shadow of a tree on the grey paint where the advertisement sat just the night before: a bit of Barbara Krueger meets Andy Goldsworthy meets Rudy Burckhardt. I absolutely could “feel this” with great reverence: the value and need for this level of awareness. Observations like this fill me to the brim--my muse, in fact.