I'm Calling It a Retreat (dismantling)
2010
I’m Calling It a Retreat I felt, wasn’t the type of show I need to keep. I guess all series are kind of like that, but I lived with Retreat being stored in my room for about a year and half and they take up quite a bit of room. I enjoyed them and I enjoyed showing them. I’ll always have those early mornings near St. Helens, those evening walks around the track with some friends, and the jaring memory of this crazy guy that I called Tater Tot who was a total and complete heterosexist. I really can’t stand that guy.
Back to Retreat. I don’t really miss the work since I dismantled it in December ‘09, but I do wonder why I had the need to recycle it. Maybe to get rid of evidence, but there are plenty of pictures. Maybe because the materials used were very crude or it was so different than the aesthetic that I’m usually drawn to. In that case, I wonder if I was embarrassed by the materials. I often felt the need to explain why I chose them and I wouldn’t usually feel the need to do so in other work. I usually have a lot more pride in the material used and when folks respond to the use of mahogany or bamboo I take it as a compliment, I don’t think it felt the same using paper, cardboard, ink, and various organic materials.
I am happy that I created a series that was hard to store while I was in rehab, an unlikely place to do so. My part of the room was filled with these hard to store boxes. When folks would ask what I was making I would usually just respond with, “I’m making spaceship.” They would chuckle, but some knew about my experience having auditory, visual, and tactile alternative perceptions (some would say hallucinations), so they might have believed that I believed I was making a spaceship. Who knows. The work has by now been composted, crushed, and made into the next thing. Maybe part of it will visit me again and I won’t even know it. That’s a nice thought.
Back to Retreat. I don’t really miss the work since I dismantled it in December ‘09, but I do wonder why I had the need to recycle it. Maybe to get rid of evidence, but there are plenty of pictures. Maybe because the materials used were very crude or it was so different than the aesthetic that I’m usually drawn to. In that case, I wonder if I was embarrassed by the materials. I often felt the need to explain why I chose them and I wouldn’t usually feel the need to do so in other work. I usually have a lot more pride in the material used and when folks respond to the use of mahogany or bamboo I take it as a compliment, I don’t think it felt the same using paper, cardboard, ink, and various organic materials.
I am happy that I created a series that was hard to store while I was in rehab, an unlikely place to do so. My part of the room was filled with these hard to store boxes. When folks would ask what I was making I would usually just respond with, “I’m making spaceship.” They would chuckle, but some knew about my experience having auditory, visual, and tactile alternative perceptions (some would say hallucinations), so they might have believed that I believed I was making a spaceship. Who knows. The work has by now been composted, crushed, and made into the next thing. Maybe part of it will visit me again and I won’t even know it. That’s a nice thought.