I didn’t go to school for art (although I did study Art History), so when I arrived at graduate school, I had absolutely no idea what the experience might be like. This is not an exaggeration. I didn’t know what the classes would be like and even wondered if the next two years might consist of some magically structured abundance of studio time. I hadn’t deliberately “made art” in quite some time and had no idea what my work would even look like. And I certainly didn’t expect that I would have to compose a formal academic writing, i.e., a written thesis. When I learned this, I thought to myself, well, if a thesis is what they are asking for, a thesis is what they will get. My final document was over 100 pages, with the bulk of it consisting of progressive theses inspired by, and responding to, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s propositional style in Tractatus Logico Philosophicus. In the end, I quite enjoyed the process of putting my thoughts to paper, supported by the images that helped me think through them.
Cover of Transits
Since then, I’ve maintained an ongoing writing practice as a way to memorialize the underlying ideas of my artwork and, through this process of articulation, ensure that I remember and remain in dialogue with these ideas conceptually. My most recent undertaking in this vein is a book I’ve written called Transits. Transits begins where my thesis left off and leads up to Spring 2023, when I exhibited Theatre of Prodigies.
One of the romantic ideas of around visual art is that it can and should speak for itself. I might even agree with this, depending on what day you ask me (although this is a much bigger subject). But artists have also written extensively and articulately on the subject of their artwork for centuries. Why wouldn’t they? They are in the business of communication, and are seriously invested in this thing they do, not only as makers but also as thinkers. I like to think of these texts as a tool for sharpening my own thinking and as my own contribution to this legacy of artists that write.