A Statement**

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Life is played on a series of stages. Some are sought after, pined for in early morning hours as the sun stretches up over a fresh sheet of ice. Some host hours of painting, sculpting, writing, or stitching, and are toasted by flutes of Champaigne. Other stages, forced, like the harsh rapping of a subpoenaed fist at your front door. The stage you are shoved onto, when your boyfriend yells at you in the dining room, and people pretend to keep eating. Stages you walk briskly from; the hard glares from strange men on the street. Gliding along as such, star of your life, pursued by uninvited audiences, might you wonder where the stages end? These stages may prove relentless. Everyone expects that toothy grin to remain on your face long after the curtain closes. No use crying about it. You’re not even famous yet. Where do you want the stage to end? Your mom just read that one really big secret that you posted on your blog. Do you think some live their lives desperate to have their insides seen? Validated? The lithe dancer shows us her ligaments, the memoirist tells readers her story, the lovers give each other full access to the insides of their bodies. Where do our own insides end? We are constantly being undressed in other people’s minds. Perhaps nothing truly protects us. Where are the boundaries? Is it at the skin, where our insides end? With the peel, the undergarments, the casings? Do they end where we say they do? Do they encompass other people? Do they end when we fail to recognize ourselves? Ask these questions of yourself. Ask them again and again. In perfect circles or broken patterns. Over the course of hours, days, weeks. Years. Ask them in your bedroom, on a street corner, on the biggest stage you can find. Shout them at strangers. Write these questions on your face. Pour a giant bowl of them and make your friends stick their hands in and squish around. Watch their reactions. Look at the expressions on their faces. See? Those expressions!
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** I am building a website for myself as an artist who makes work to be seen in non-traditional art-viewing spaces. If you don't know me, it might help to know my work can be at times intensely personal, humourous, dark, and strange. I liked this as a statement for it's provokation. I found this more engaging than a more explanitory statement, and less invasive than a deliberately personal statement. Comments are welcome. Thank You.