You Had Not Always Been...You First Had To Grow To Be.

“Your figures are not what men are, but what men could be—and should be. You have gone beyond the probable and made us see what is possible, but possible only through you. Because your figures are more devoid of contempt for humanity than any work I’ve ever seen. Because you have a magnificent respect for the human being. Because your figures are the heroic in man."
-Howard Roark speaking to Steven Mallory in The Fountainhead

I've started to speak more about my work in the last few days, trying to verbalize to those around me. I've always known what it was about on a gut level. You know how you can understand something, and know all the nuances of it, but never have to actually think about it or explain it to yourself? Well, its been like that. What I keep coming back to is the above quote about Mallory's work. Its not that I feel like my figures are the heroic in man, or that I want them to express that. But if I was given the chance to create mankind in my own image of what is ideal I would create them as I draw them. My work captures the two most beautiful forms that I've found in the world around me. I form the essential, sacred elements of both into something that is, in my view, perfect. To have a human form, rooted into the ground, in perfect synergy with everything around it, melting and becoming part of the earth...no, its not heroic, but it is my ideal.

Last night I was looking through my sketchbook and I found a drawing that I did while I was tripping. I compared it to the sketch I'm working on now and realized that there is no difference. If anything, the work I do sober is more trippy than any work I do high. Max proceeded to ask what the difference really was. "What is the difference between tripping and not tripping?" he wanted to know. In terms of my art I have discovered that there isn't really a line. The experiences I have while on acid have influenced my work more than anything. The connection that I feel to the earth around me; the melding and mixing of my consciousness with the soul of the world; these are the experiences that I pull on when I draw. Plants have always fascinated me, so I tend to spend a lot of time communicating with them. I connect with them and become them, especially grass. When I come down I miss being a plant, and I feel that this contributes a lot to my morphing of the human figure into plants.

I feel like my work is evolving to a different level, as art is prone to do at times. It has become very illustrative. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, but it seems to be working. People around me are beginning to get the point very fast. So maybe this is the tangent I need to continue upon: illustrating a perfect world for those around me.

Oh, and the title is from one of the pages of my sketchbook, which is actually a very old 'how you were made' book for little kids.