Lewis Carroll, speaking through the mouth of the Cheshire cat and paraphrased here, said the following: “You must be (mad) or you wouldn't have come here.”

This brilliantly sums up my experience with the creative process – madness. For to truly receive the muse, one must be willing to consider the unconsiderable, to peel away the layers of mass perception and see things as they truly are. This vision is a practice in awareness, of becoming. Containing it, redirecting it and articulating it back into the world is the gift of the artist, but it's a gift that can threaten to tear a maker apart. I accept this destruction of self, as it is essential to my practice, and use the remnants to fuel my resurrection into production. Or, as Francis Bacon once put it; “...I believe deeply in ordered chaos...”

From the outside, such an existence is as far from sane as one can get. But for one who was born into it, there is nothing more rational than the irrational.

Thus, the nugget of my thesis.

~~~

As I progress deeper into my project, I've begun to experience an eerily calm high -- a clarity of vision that I haven't had for quite some time. As things filter and come into focus, I am tempted to release my tether; relax the muscle that keeps me docked in this gray, banal tide pool of our left-brained, linear society. My senses are more acute here. There are no boxes to fit into, no masks or pretense to hide behind – only color, shape and vibration.

The shapes are the most interesting to me at the moment. From the inkblots I started with, I have discerned a number of compelling, dream-like images that hint at the figure, but are really unfiltered emotions trapped in corporeal form. These forms, I believe, echo the figures of Pompeii, which I once experienced in person during the winter of 1997. There is a fragility in those frozen moments that whisper in my ear, and on a primal level, have started informing the core of my work. Also, there is the notion of the body as a container -- literally a vessel, a shell. This in turn, calls to mind erosion, which speaks to the underlying sense of dehumanization and the loss of self that I am attempting to address here.

This then, has brought me to the Cicada. On the one hand, it is a visual manifestation of the ceaseless drone I hear in the back of my mind, but it is also a personal signifier akin to the psychopomp. Naturally, this brings to mind images of ravens, which for me, ties into my cultural heritage as an Italian American. Of course, the Cicada, given its shape, has also come to represent my early dependence on mood stabilizers...

I have been rereading Kafka's "Metamorphosis" partly for inspiration but also as a way to keep my mind on track as I climb out of analysis and into production. First, I am exploring the idea of the figure closing itself off from it's environment – burrowing, suffocating. Then, breaking down the body metaphorically through the replication of the Cicada in overwhelming numbers... and on and on. For now, here are some more artists whose work intrigues me for one reason or another:

Since the end of May, I have been exceptionally busy in my studio and as is often the case, everything else in my life gets sidelined... I've been pretty lax about my blogging duties and as more time goes by, I have become anxiously aware of its neglect.

My sincerest apologies.

When the second semester of my program came to an end, I felt like a raw, exposed nerve. I was second guessing and over-thinking everything I did to the point that all joy had left my art making. It's the one aspect of academia that really pisses me off. Stop talking about the work and just do it, for christsake. The theory will sort itself out later. I believe this more now than ever.

So, in order to keep from completely losing my mind, I walked away from my practice for a bit. What I needed to do, I decided, was shift my focus for a while so I could be refreshed and ready when the fall semester began. I spent some time in the gym, working out my frustrations. I reread “The Tao of Pooh” by Benjamin Hoff. I produced a couple of murals, did some life-drawing and filled a sketchbook. I got better acquainted with my digital drawing tablet... Essentially, I let go.

Through most of my undergad, I had been developing a practice built on the idea that I would write, illustrate and publish graphic novels. Think “Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel or “Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth” by Chris Ware. This idea, unfortunately, had been abandoned after a terrifying encounter with J. O'Barr, creator of “The Crow.”

Therefore, to honor my origins, I set up an off-campus experience with The Amazing David Brame, whom I had the chance to meet during a studio visit earlier in the year. After some illuminating talks with him, I decided to put my comic undies back on and revisit some old projects. I dove back into character design, outlined a short graphic script and laid out some rough sequential pages of a project that might actually be worth pursuing. Next summer.

The point is, for the first time in almost a year, I was again finding joy in creating.

My reward for this downtime came during the final two weeks of August. I was inexplicably struck by the inspiration to explore the idea of emotional distortion and isolation through the rather personal lens of Bipolar disorder and trauma. These are things that I live with and manage daily, through diet and exercise, routine and self awareness and of course, through my studio practice. As with any complex and deeply personal subject matter -- as this is to me, I need to be honest. However, even though I have intimate and expert knowledge of the issues that I am addressing, I must be careful to consider my viewers. I want to expand their perception of what can be a touchy, potentially volatile subject in a way that lends itself to debate. This translates into abstraction and to creating some specific signifiers that come from my personal experiences, but remain vague enough to encourage a reexamination of what the accepted perception may appear to be.

What can I say? Go big or go the fuck home.

With all of this swirling around in my mind, I began producing a flurry of free association drawings. These exercises were designed to help me dive deep into my subconscious and uncover the symbols and tropes that lurk within the bowels of my ID. This has since evolved into the creation and analysis of ink blots. These, in turn, have generated images and ideas that I am currently sifting through in an attempt to finalize what will eventually become my thesis work.

Clearly, this means planning. This means I will need to strategize. Research both sides and find the common thread. I have a number of medical journals and psychological publications that I am referring to, as well as actual people I'll be/have been interviewing, but at the end of the day, I need only look within to find the answers I need.

Some artists that are informing my research...