Some projects are not as done as I think. This is one.

I am committed to doing a portrait at Garnerville Maker Faire in mid May. Its a crazy cool space that is behind the gallery, like a secret garden. It is split in half. Half is flat, with grassy moss over pebbles and then there is a retaining wall and the land slopes up to a fence up above.

I sat with the space, meditated and asked for an image to come. The author of BIBSY came up. The author is local and it is a story of our area and how black folk came to settle here. It would be an opportunity to support another artist. But the image isn’t clear. I don’t know if its because the viewers sight line is bizarre, that there are essentially two unique spaces, or that this subject is not the right one. I have been sitting with it for over 3 weeks now.

The thing is, I am willing to engage in conversations, and I want to engage in conversations with white people, but I don’t want the subject of my art to take the heat. The conversation needs to come back to me.

And I don’t want to tokenize the subject. So that leaves me with subjects that want to promote their image, and are ok with connecting their image with what I am doing. I am still in the starting phase of this project, and am still learning how to engage people, and the significance of the work.

It became clear to me that I need to do my own image. I planned on using my own image as practice over at a local art center. I want to make sure I can create a reasonalbe likeness - and that the perspective does not skew the image to the point of ridicule.

So I will use my own image for now. And the work is about my whiteness so it makes sense in a way. Its just that I have been looking at my face for so many years - its not that interesting.

I will trust that the next step will come when I am ready.