Oh it isn't that I'm bitter or resentful or anything. It just seems that the "powers that be" have a completely different idea about the way my life should go than I do. I'm sorry if that sounds whiney, but you're here by choice, and you can leave with the click of a mouse. I'm stuck here and I have to make the best of it - so there.

One of the odd turns my life took came when I was deciding to go to college. I was considering a well-respected photography school. But my "mentor", an actual working New York photographer told me that would be on the same order as going to trade school. Why bother with learning craft or anything like that? He himself was studying film making, and purposely went out of his way to avoid watching movies so that he wouldn't be corrupted by the inane ideas of lesser folks. Of course later it turned out that he was literally certifiably insane - and has been committed numerous times since then, but my course was already set. It was clear. To be truly creative is to work in isolation. That also means I have no formal art training, subscribe to no established school of thought, and am bound by no existing conventions.

I know that's crazy, and I've been trying to get past it ever since. I am painfully aware of the value of collaboration and cooperation, and in my professional life I apply those principles on a daily basis - quite successfully, too (thankyou very much). But, even though my job calls for considerable creativity - it isn't "my art". "My art" is mine. I can only do "my art" in isolation. It is always experimental, and rarely (if ever) commercial. However, I have always been able to take what I've learned from "my art", and apply it to "my job", and it always seems to make money for somebody in some way.

As for "my art", I've always been captivated by metaphysical themes. Much of my work seems to revolve around metamorphosis and conceptual juxtapositions. No matter how hard I try, a project is never finished unless I can look at it and find it disturbing on some level. I know that many artists go for the "gratuitous shock value" and claim that it is meant to "wake everybody up". I admit that I labored under that illusion for awhile, but now I admit that I just get a kick out of ideas and images that are sad and demented.

I'm always fascinated by the reactions people have to "my art" because those reactions are as much a part of the project as anything else. If you would like to share your thoughts on "my art", shoot me an e-mail. I might answer it, and I might not - but by doing so you participate in the process and actually become part of the project.