From the Middle- Part 1

Graduate school was great therapy for me.  I know that critique sessions that lasted for up to four hours were torture for some, but I found them to be very revealing, but usually indirectly.  This was the cycle: spend 15-20 hrs a week alone in a filthy, cluttered space feeling pressed for time, deprived of sleep, listening to music loudly to drown out the internal voices that criticized my every move as stupid and derivative; try to make work that was personal, but not too personal, but definitely original; settle on making the work that I "felt" I must make by doing the things that "felt natural"; hang it up and pick it a part during a four hour session with people that I was sure were much, much smarter than me (except for the one or two that I knew were much, much dumber than everybody); realize that everything that "felt natural" to me was weird and confusing to everybody else; go back to my filthy, cluttered studio and turn up the music.  But every once in a while, usually when I was busy with some mundane duty, a tiny bump in the grinding cycle would jolt me awake. It was kinda like when I was a kid sitting in the front seat of the car without a seat belt, and I was busy looking at my hands, and my mom would brake too quickly, and I would hit my face on the dashboard.  Anyway, at these moments, the most profound and the most obvious insights would come, and I would receive some clue as to what I was supposed to be doing or thinking about as I was making art. 

One such moment came as I was driving back home from a grinding critique at Wichita State.  As I drove on auto pilot from the Northeast part of town toward my house, I was reflecting on my upbringing.  I am one of eight children, number 5 from the oldest.  Now, I have always known that middle children are the most well adjusted children, eager to do their part and to keep the peace.  It was great that I was able to study art and still stay close to my family.   Then it struck me, as I drove West on the highway toward home,  I was also studying painting from the middle, in Wichita Kansas, as opposed to, say, New York or L.A.  And then a strange sinking feeling pulled at my gut, as I turned South on Main street.  Not only was I a middle child, always eager not to make waves, and not only was I planted firmly in the center of the country, I was also living in the geographic center of the city.  And then, as I drove down my street, a strange buzz grew in my head.  Counting the houses on my block, mine was the center house.

Here was something to pay attention to.

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