Letter to Collectors
My Art Is Not For Everyone
If you are motivated to acquire art to impress others…
my art is not for you.
If you are choosing art because someone told you it matters…
or because it matches the furniture…
or because it has already been approved by anything outside of what you feel in your own body…
in your heart…in your gut…
my art is not for you.
…
My work is for brave human beings.
The ones who feel something visceral and meaningful in their chest…
and are unwilling to override it.
The ones who feel deeply…
who recognize what is real for them…
and refuse to ignore it.
…
There are moments in life
when something real breaks through.
Undefended moments.
Emotionally, substantial moments.
Not conceptual or intellectual.
Real.
The kind of real that makes the throb in your chest the central part of your awareness.
your breath catches…
your eyes fill with tears before you even know why.
…
When I was 18, I stood, unable to move, in front of a painting by Claude Monet …for three hours… and cried. Not little polite tears. A continuous river of uncontrollable tears… Tears of a recognition. Tears of gratitude. Tears of Love. Tears that acknowledged that what I was looking at really mattered.
A few years later, the same thing happened again in front of a painting by Rembrandt.
Nothing was being explained to me.
But something profoundly important in me was being fully met.
Something substantial, and not logical, that I had been longing for…
aching for…
without even knowing it was something my soul needed.
…
That feeling of being fully met by this awe-inspiring, invisible power is the reason I make art.
Not to decorate space.
But to honor and revere that feeling that wants to be made into form so it can meet us in that place inside us that is most real… that nothing else can reach… and meet it fully.
…
And when that happens…
it’s not subtle.
It reaches into your chest
and touches something real and meaningful many people never awaken.
It moves like lightning through your body.
It reminds you of something you knew…
before the world you grew up in taught you how to hide it.
…
For clarity’s sake, I don’t create that force.
But I have spent my life entire life learning how to recognize it…
stay tuned to it…
nurture it…
be close and open and intimate with it…
and let that move through me unimpeded… to become art.
Art is a structure that allows something that is both infinitely powerful …
and invisible…
to become real.
Visceral.
Palpable.
And forever recognizable in your body.
…
So if you are feeling something real with a piece of art right now…
even a flicker…
a pull…
a curiosity…
a quiet yes you don’t fully understand…
Whether that’s my art or somebody else’s… don’t ignore it.
That level of honesty, vulnerability, passion, and vitality wants to live in you.
…
Surrounding yourself with artworks that keep you feeling turned in, tapped in and turned on is not for everyone.
But for the ones it is for…
for people like me…
it is not optional.
It is as essential as air…
and blood…
and bone.
If you stay with it and live with it…
you may start to recognize and appreciate something valuable.
Not about the artwork.
About yourself.
…
The pieces you choose to live with
are not neutral.
They shape the space around you.
And we now know…not as theory, but through decades of research…
that what surrounds you directly affects your body…
your nervous and immune system…
your emotional well-being…
your capacity to heal…
your sexual and physical energy…
your sense of meaning, mattering and connection.
The art you surround yourself with shapes how alive you feel.
…
The people who collect my work
are not looking for something to fill a wall or match a couch.
They are choosing to not to ignore the ache to live in the presence of something real.
Something that meets them.
Challenges them.
Reminds them.
Every day.