I've had an art show up in downtown Knoxville this month that I'm taking down next week. It's at Kate Moore Creative and Jennie Andrews Photography studios at 123 South Gay Street. You may still be able to pop in there to see it during normal weekday business hours Monday through Wednesday of next week.

The final product of this show was really surprising to me, as I had a different idea for it, even a week before the opening. Changing my mind right before a show, however, is nothing new. I intended to make simple graphite drawings of buildings, but the idea to make multiple xeroxes of those drawings didn't come until about 4 days before I hung the show.

The originals- graphite drawings

I still didn't know what the outcome would be when I began hanging it. It took me about 7 hours to install, maybe 2 to 3 hours physical and 4-5 hours mental (because I am A} mentally inept or B} a creative genius. The jury's still out on that one)

So I made these small graphite drawings of buildings which was a welcome relief to me. Through them, I fell more deeply in love with this mysterious thing called art, which has all ready cast a spell on me. Graphite on paper is the equivalent to young autumnal* love. I became lost in the simplicity, the honesty, the vulnerability of it.

I drew buildings on the Knox Heritage and East Tennessee Preservation Alliance endangered lists- beautiful dilapidated buildings, schoolhouses, and homes. I wanted to "give them a voice," so to speak, so I put speech bubbles above them.

I decided to leave the originals blank, being satisfied with them visually and conceptually (you can see one of them here), but I also wanted to add text, so I decided to make multiple copies of them at Kinko's.

***

Over the past few years, I've been recuperating from an emotional low that hit me right after college. (I mention it a lot. I apologize if it becomes annoying) It had been building up for years before then, and so it makes sense that it would take years to heal from. In an effort to reclaim a sense of emotional well-being, I have filled journals with thoughts, read numerous books, talked to generous and loving people, and even researched online how to cope with pain, suffering, and stress...

***

I decided to put these two things together- the dilapidated buildings and the research I found online, statements or words people can say to help them cope with pain or suffering. From there, I began looking up quotes from famous people on the subject of pain. I filled in the speech bubbles with these words on the xeroxed pieces.

***

It might be presumptuous of me to assume what a building would say if it could speak, but I soon realized this was more for me than the buildings. Making these was a way for me to cope with the fact that there's nothing I can do to help these buildings. I have no money, no power, but I can draw, that's it.

Also, I hate to even say this as I hope people would realize it on their own, but it's meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Everyone knows it sucks admitting you have a problem with anything, but when you come out of it, (it might take some time, but) you can finally laugh at how desperate you once were. And it's funny because I find the websites on coping to be just as depressing as being depressed (Here is an example). It's all just too much...

So anyway, here is my artist statement and more photos of the show. And thank you, thank you for going to see it if you did. You are the bomb.org.

Of course, there were mason jars ;)

*Autumn love is far more romantic than summer love, at least in my book.

I didn't sleep very well last night. I'm with my family in Colorado for the week, and I am the lucky one that has had to change beds three times since I've been here (I'm the youngest. It's OK).

Last night, I finally had to share a room, but my roommate's snores were loud enough to penetrate through my earplugs, so I dragged my sheets and blankets out to the couch.

I still couldn't fall asleep which made me think of this drawing I did a while ago.



There's nothing to be afraid of
graphite, marker, colored pencil, ink, and varnish on paper
2005
about 3'x4'

I can't remember exactly when it started, but there was a time when I would wake up every single morning and lie awake in bed for hours before falling back asleep around 7. This was different than my experience last night where my lack of sleep was a result of being in an unfamiliar, somewhat uncomfortable place. It was anxiety that used to wake me up.

There are more details surrounding why this was going on, but it's a story too long to tell now. Looking back, I realize I was in state of increasing depression, but for many reasons, would not call it that. Instead, I thought I could will whatever was going on away, and I believed that it was my fault I couldn't sleep because of the way I was, that I was doing something wrong during daylight hours to deserve this. If I could make myself a better person, I would sleep. I know now, this only made my anxieties worse.

I remember all of this so clearly in 2007, after just graduating from college and living alone for the first time. It was agonizing, and in the early fall of that year, I named what was going on depression, and decided in October to go to L'abri in Switzerland to finally "work on it."

It's interesting to me to look at the above drawing and see how long I let myself live like that. I made the drawing about waking up at night in a state of panic (see the sillhouette of the monster in the closet) and how it was impossible to ease my thoughts at that time of the morning, and how merely waking up for the day around 8 or 9 am alleviated most of the trauma. I named it There's nothing to be afraid of because, even then, I knew my anxieties and fears were exaggerated. They weren't real, and trying to fight them off in the darkest hours of night was pointless.

Two years later in October 2007, I flew to Switzerland to stay at L'abri. Fighting off my fears there was anything but pointless. I decided to face everything that was going on and fight it to it's death, learning that fighting really meant giving up. I left there seven weeks later with the most clarity and insight I had ever had up to that point. I knew I still had a long road ahead, but I was granted a huge victory there.

A few weeks into my stay there, I went to bed one night on the top bunk in the same room as three other girls in Chalet Bellevue, and I slept through the night for the first time in years.

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More on the drawing: 

The painting above the bed is from a page in Goodnight Moon, the pillow is the pattern from the bedspread in Popcorn, Wes Clanton took the photo that I used for this drawing, and it is of me in my bed from childhood that I used while I lived in Shelbourne Towers. I chose to make the bed a similar green as the pipes in Super Mario Brothers. The monster is actually from an old children's book where a dog thinks he's a lion. I can't think of the name of the book at the moment, but he is also in this screenprint I made.






















He's actually very cute.