Why Calloused Hands Make Good Art

As an artist it is impossible to escape one’s origin and identity. I think most of us struggle with that one way or another, at some point in our development. As I’ve grown older I’ve gained a lot of peace from letting go of the things that “should have” or “could have” been; accepting who I am, and finally embracing it. For me this has been all about reconciling the apparent conflict between aspects of my life, and learning to see the harmony that can exist amid what at first glance seems to be a patchwork of contradiction.

My young childhood was defined by my dad’s immersion in the great labor of his doctoral dissertation in medieval studies. We lived in downtown Colorado Springs and he taught at Colorado College while pursuing his PhD. Home was a rented bottom floor of a large, slightly rundown victorian era house, that had been partitioned into various apartments. Next door sprawled an overgrown empty lot, probably about an acre, which we ranged freely. So even in an urban setting my siblings and I spent a lot of time outside. Both my parents are creative, intelligent people who love beauty, aesthetic, history, and literature. My mother schooled us during the day, at which she did an excellent job, and afternoons we stayed busy the way enthusiastic kids do. Every night we gathered in the living room, and my parents took turns reading aloud to us while we drew, played with legos, clay, or whatever else. I didn’t know what a gift that was at the time. Since then I’ve realized that those countless hours of absorbing stories and language, while my hands stayed busy, would become the foundation of my creative life. Landscapes stretched out toward distant horizons, myths and conquests unfolded, and beloved characters become as present to me as real people in my life. Ideas flowed and coalesced and we experienced wonder.

Although steeped in art and literature and the exercises of the mind, we were not strangers to the physical world and hard work. My family on both sides came from the Midwest, and settled in Colorado a couple of generations before me. Hard work was a value and a practice for us, and was hugely important for me specifically. I wasn’t as academically inclined as some of my siblings, and didn’t have much knack for social situations. I’ve always been wired a little funny. But hard work gave me a way to test myself and prove my worth. It was one of the key ways I earned respect from my dad. We helped my mom garden, did chores around the house, and raised hogs with friends on their land outside town, slaughtering every fall. Those were good times.

My teens were hard years though, and we had moved a couple of times, leaving that beautiful old house, and I went to public school for the first time in high school. It was complicated. I didn’t really understand my place in the world, and got in with a rough crowd. It's really not surprising that I ended up falling into a hard-drinking-blue-collar scene as I got older. I've worked factories, meat processing, landscaping, property maintenance, construction… and I was good at it. I’m good with my hands and a hard worker. But I felt something missing. I was born and raised to create, to be a craftsman and artist. Although that desire always remained, and always expressed itself in some ways, it didn’t come to anything of note in my 20s.

When I finally got my life better handled, and reconnected with my artistic talents, the obscure art of stone carving is what captivated me. I love everything about it, and took to it with energy and drive that’s hard to describe. I carved granite statuary without even the basic tools, and imposed my will and vision upon stones that would intimate even veteran carvers. I just didn’t know any better. Those early sculptures stand in my memory as almost mystical experiences, and I will never leave the path they set me on.

However, even though I was doing great work, I struggled with insecurity over “the wasted years,” and my self-perception as an outsider in the well-groomed and sophisticated world of fine art. I felt like Frankenstein’s monster: parted together from here and there, with no coherent identity.

That feeling of self-contradiction and exclusion still plagues me from time to time, but an important truth has asserted itself over and over through my experience as artist. That truth is this: that the self doubt, and the feeling that I have no place, is total bullshit. The journey of being an artist is a coherent one that distills meaning out of confusion and brings harmony to chaos, at least when it is lived with determination and awareness. The dichotomies in my life that seemed so insurmountable, now seem like obvious parings that could not have been chosen better for this task. The intellectual and the laborer are both facets of a stone carver. It is hard, physical work, done with tools and exertion. It is also the telling of stories, and the pursuit of beauty and form. The social outcast and the conversationalist both have their place in my practice. Isolation becomes the soil for new creation, and dialogue is inherent to the spirit of art as the chronicle of human experience.

When I look back now, at least on my good days (the majority I would say,) the “wasted years” have become necessary training that taught me to work hard and to connect with people of all walks. The inner turmoil and bend toward self-destruction have become an engine out of which emerges order. My practice allows me to make sense of inner chaos and honor pain. Grief, toil and fear are met by beauty, truth, dignity, and love. It's like dreaming. My mind and body make sense of the human condition through physical forms and ideas, telling a story that is bigger than my own. And as I walk this road, resentment and regret turn to fondness and gratitude. Fear becomes hope. My work ethic keeps me always pushing, and ensures that the pieces I create are imbued with true value.

Therefore, I have found that I MUST be an artist. It is the hard work of it that brings meaning to my life, and as I shape the stones I shape myself. By committing to my art I have committed to becoming art. It all flows from the position of saying “yes” to my life, to my identity, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Thank you for being a part of the journey, and for reading until the end.

Much love.

Quicksand in the middle ground

I’m sure we can all agree that these are crazy times; politically, economically, culturally… all that. No matter where we look there is a new disaster, controversy, or movement. The ugly reality of war is ever present, and the threat of more conflict looms dark on the horizon. Social norms are in flux; battle lines have been drawn in nearly every intellectual space and across every platform. Never in my life have I seen so much polarization. And just to be clear, I’m not just talking about politics here, because dividing lines spiderweb through every strata of life.

Given this climate of debate and factions, I have had to look at my own tendency toward the moderate position, and belief that truth is rarely best served by extremism on any side of an issue. While I understand the danger of logic fallacy here (for example, in an argument about whether the sky is yellow or blue one can’t chose the middle and say green,) I don’t often see a single perspective serving all the facts. Recently though, I’ve pondered whether it is even responsible not to chose sides. Have things become so hot and stakes so high that the moderate position has been reduced to cowardess? Do we now live in a time when one must chose sides or be destroyed in the crossfire? Is it better to choose an imperfect faction than to be left without a tribe in a culture war that is inevitable? Has the idea of being a peacemaker become a naive delusion?

The answer to these questions seems to be more complicated than I would like, as the truth often seems to be. I conclude that I have to take each moment as it comes, consider every issue as it arises, and form the best stance I can. Perhaps that means taking a hard position on a particular piece of legislation — even if I can’t be satisfied by a single party — or maybe it means arguing devils advocate in a situation, simply to defuse hate and anger that would otherwise destroy any chance for dialogue. When it comes to political issues, the past several months have taught me that I must try to manage the difficult act of staying calm and engaging in conversation. The key to that is always treating people with love and respect even if I disagree with them — difficult, I know. But by restraining the heat of opinion, dialogue may be possible when it seems unlikely, and I believe that is a good thing. The only way to reduce the polarization in our culture is to venture out of the echo chamber of our own alliances and talk to “the enemy,” perhaps even finding a friend. I have changed others’ opinions and had mine changed as well, and my perspective has grown.

Alright, but what about art? What about personal culture? Can I be a peacemaker of ideas and find moderate ground in those spaces? Can I be inspired by both classical and modern modes without one simply waging conquest over the other in my work? Can I live a spiritual life in midst of secular humanism without being always at war within myself or at odds with my environment? How can live with balance and not be torn between competing masters?

I believe the answer in this case is yes and no. Yes, I can seek this balance, and create art that honors a diverse sense of culture and history. Yes, I can build relationships of love and respect with individuals and movements that represent journeys distinct from my own. But no, I will never be free of inner conflict and questions. I will never reach a point of stasis where I can stop striving for the way forward. I will always have to tread water or sink. That’s fine though, I possess the life force within me. It’s the same force that drives a tree to grow up through concrete, or flourish hanging from an unstable cliff. I can live richly and with magnanimity. I can be one of those who by their humanity turn combat into a dance.

However, after coming to this inspiring realization another question came on its heels. By choosing to live in a moderate space between polarized extremes, will I be a man apart? Will I be a pilgrim moving through the world with no place or tribe? Will my career suffer? Perhaps, but I think not. I believe there are many people like me: people who love classical sculpture and conceptual installations both; people who grew up devouring literature but who won’t turn their nose up at a fun thriller; people who can love Beethoven and Billie Eilish; people who can see others and love them, even if they disagree with damn near every opinion they have. I believe there are a lot of us, and that the world needs us. It takes courage to chose sides in a heated conflict, but it takes another kind of courage to say, “I will not make you my enemies,” and stand firm in the contested middle ground. This is what I seek for my life and art practice. I want people of all backgrounds and convictions to stop, look, and say “That’s cool man, well done.”

This is my hope, and I’m discovering that I chose this road love before I knew it. I hope to walk it well, and hope I’m not alone. Let’s stop fighting for a minute and make something really badass, even if we fight more later. Let’s celebrate excellence.

Anyway, if you’ve read this far thank you. Please me know what you think of all this, I genuinely am curious what others might have to say. Comment below.

Permanence as Aesthetic

Why do I work in marble? The first reason is that I love it. The texture, the translucence, the way it carves and makes velvet dust when cut - everything about it is beautiful. It is made from the compressed remains of countless living things, the skeletal ghosts of ocean floors turned to stone. There is something timeless about it, and its properties become transcendent when it is sculpted; becoming ageless expressions of a particular time and place. We have all seen the statuary and architectural ornaments of past generations. The Greeks, the Romans, renaissance Europe, and the Far East, all live on through the exceptional works of artistry that their masters rendered in stone.

This brings me to the second reason I love this material: it is permanent. That's part of why it appealed to classical societies. It showed the world that something had been built to last. This is less persuasive to us now, since our culture is one of transience and change. How well and how fast an individual can move and change has become a statement in itself. The things we make are meant to fulfill a function with little thought to legacy in a concrete way. Art has become more and more perforative, digital, and ephemeral. I find a lot of this work interesting, and certainly don’t object to these movements and forms of expression. However, there is something satisfying about artwork that says “I am here, and I will remain.” It becomes a statement of its own, part of the aesthetic of an individual or entity.

Stone sculpture is heavy, hard to transport, and awkward to handle, but is that a disadvantage or the entire point? To include marble work in one’s space brings a seriousness and intentionality with it. It invites the viewer to explore something that does not move and does not change. It takes internal experiences and solidifies them in space and time. Perhaps this is so powerful for me personally because I have lived a complex and transitory life. I have moved often, been through many experiences, and manifested many iterations of who I am as a person. Permanence and a profound personal expression are aspects of life I seek. I invite you to go on this journey with me, as I search for lasting beauty, truth, and expression, in the marble that I shape. Thanks for being here.