Bright Sketch

(Digital)

Stuff like this, I have no idea where it comes from.

It’s like dreams. Last night I dreamt I lived in a pyramid, deep underground. This evening I realized I’ve dreamt of that pyramid many times before.

This strikes me as one of those topics that clearly illustrates a person’s essential temperament. Some people would have dreams like those and think they had once lived in Egypt in a past life. Good for them. Fancy bastards. Me? I just assume “pyramid” is shorthand in my brain for “secret,” “hidden,” and “safe.”

I don’t think the emergent drawings have a great depth of meaning either. I was recently discussing Miami and its lovely abundance of pink and green. Those colors are also complimentary. Sometimes it’s just fun to sketch without brainpower. If words could shrug, that’s what I’d make them do here.

There are plenty of art historians willing to make up a ton of shit about what art means based on its formal qualities and their projections of their issues, obsessions, and essential temperaments. It’s… I suppose more “too bad” than “shocking” how little art historians know about the actual process of making art. If they ever talked to living artists, the answer they’d get most often is, “I have no idea what this is or where it came from, I just know I HAD TO MAKE IT.”

I’m not saying dreams and art don’t mean anything. I love everything about dreams and legitimately want to stab people who don’t understand the holy aspect of all art forms (no part of that sentence is hyperbole). I'm just saying: it’s all complicated. From “the death of the author” (art historians fucking love Barthes for giving them this and I will most definitely revisit it) to the therapist who told me I only made art to avoid grieving for my dead father (a statement that divided my friends and acquaintances nearly 50/50 for and against but which resulted in my immediate abandonment of that particular professional), I have a lot of thoughts about these intricacies.

They’ll have to wait. Til then: enjoy this shiny, mindless, Miami-and-watermelon-summer-goals-inspired nothingness.