When you have been doing something a certain way for twenty years, there is an inherent fear in making any sort of change. Painting is my life, and trying to tell a story in a different way is consistently in the back of my head.
When I was young, it was a big dream to find a way to have my art hanging on a wall within a museum. When I jumped into painting and showing my art at galleries, it really didn’t go the way I thought in the end. Not to say that I did not learn anything, because I learned a whole lot. Showing my art all over the place since 2007 eventually led up to a point where I needed to stop and think about how to get back onto that track I imagined when I was young.
I have spent the last three years thinking a lot and also going through a familiar and ongoing cycle as I worked: pushing art online. That has been something I have been doing since the beginning, and though it has helped spread my art visually, it hasn’t fed into those original goals. That feeling of being off track about how my art is presented, along with the desire to move into a slightly different space with the art itself, has lingered for a while.
I created a different identity to try to find that original path. Working inside that space definitely helped answer questions on where I would like to take my art, yet it left me a bit confused about what I am trying to do with building my career. It led to a point of feeling somewhat lost.
In an effort to escape that feeling of not having a clear direction, I decided to force myself to find a single clear path with painting. Recently, I started to create paintings that showed a reveal; a package, an ad, or any container that holds something within. Looking at them as a whole, something came across very clear: all this time I have been pulled toward American nostalgia, ephemera, and the tactile artifacts of memory. Once that realization was there, it was easy to understand the path.
At the moment, I was painting a bat toy revealed through an old ad with the toy, Gre-Gory, in acrylic paint. I turned around and looked at my easel where I have had a painting sitting for nearly a year that I was slowly working on, Jumping Zebra. It was hard to distinguish any big difference between the two. At that moment, I decided to stop trying to be two separate artists and bring in the ideas of Jinn Olasmo, my alternate art name.
I can honestly say, at the moment, that I don’t know where this is headed, but I am glad I decided to walk the one path and let the pieces fall as they may. Most anyone out there would say to paint what your heart feels, but again, it is hard to break away from doing things a certain way after doing it for so long. For me, who I am, this is difficult, and it shouldn’t be. I am writing this to give myself permission to move forward with a plan of making art I love regardless of the type of art that comes out.
I owe everything to those that have supported anything I have ever created. You have added fuel to this ever-changing ride. I am not saying I currently have all the answers, but today they have become a lot clearer.
