
artistic mission statement
Songwriter Paul Simon describes the creative experience as tapping into a mysterious underground river. To poet Ruth Stone, it’s a thunderous train of air, barreling at her over the landscape. Director Werner Herzog compares it to a burglar, climbing through the window and making a racket in the kitchen. To me, the experience of a creative revelation is decidedly more subtle. An idea, vision, melody—even a joke—floats humbly down like an autumn leaf. I’m not sure of it’s worth until I set it aside and come back to it later.
What am I to do with such a visitor? Is it really worth pursuing? Will I and/or the world be richer for having done so? I can only rely on my intuition; when it leans “yes,” I get to work. I believe that an artist can never fully articulate how and why they do what they do, and this isn’t a bad thing. To describe one’s own work too precisely is to fetter it; Art is that which can’t be described by any other means. In broad strokes, my art is a means of wrestling with existential anxiety and capturing ecstasy. It’s often dark, but just as often beautiful. My mission is to explore these poles and produce something that encapsulates both.
“It is for the goodness of our being that we improve in whatever we do; when we are good at what we do… the world we live in will gain from our creations.”
Sam Adoquei