Why Change Can Be A Beautiful Thing
TRIED TO MAKE THEM RIGHT ALL WRONGS | 2019 | Watercolor, graphite, acrylic & wax pencil. | Handmade pine frame. | 30x22” | INQUIRE TO PURCHASE HERE
WHY IS CHANGE IMPORTANT? | Change makes you feel something. Sometimes it’s excitement, sometimes it’s fear and sometimes its confusion. I’m sure in some capacity the past few weeks have pulled us all into the fold with some strange mix of the three and then some. All of my landscapes are rooted in change. They’re never simple or steady images, instead they begin to shift, break down and come alive right before your eyes. Within the drawings these structures and landscapes make you feel something through their story and have the capacity to pull you back through time - to something familiar but out of reach. They can easily play will your hopes and dreams; dig up past trauma, stoke deep seated regret, or maybe make you think of that person you hadn’t thought of in a while. They often leave you with more questions than answers, taking you off on some subconcious narrative or tangent you probably didn’t even know you had.
Drawing is beautiful in that way, it wraps you up in the movement and the line then leaves you breathless from reliving those fleeting moments of creation…it has the power to make everything else fall away and focus the world if you let it. It’s an entire process rooted in the energy of change and there’s nothing that feeds creative energy more than something unsettling and yet familiar all at the same time. That’s why I’ve been enamored with drawing most of my life, its a constant reminder that everything is shifting and that the experience of change (and the pangs of nostalgia that come with it) are often what makes life worth living - it wakes you up a bit and makes you feel alive.
STORY BEHIND “TRIED TO MAKE THEM RIGHT ALL WRONGS” | Sometimes I pick locations due to their anonymity and sometimes I pick them due to how heavy and loaded the imagery is. This one is based on the old Melrose Inn in Tryon, NC and has lots of history behind it. The structure was a town landmark in its own right, originally built in 1899 and was one of the oldest standing buildings in the area. In September 2018 the inn burnt to the ground due to an electrical fire, the building and all of it’s contents were considered a total loss. Often burnt down homes become symbols of quick and dramatic change with a lot of deep seated emotional impact - they’re nothing short of tragic in that someone has lost everything they’ve spent their life working towards, making the remnants powerful and painful images in that right alone.
I photographed this site at sunrise one morning in October after the fire - a beautiful sunrise lit the old oaks still standing behind the property in beautiful shades of violet and pink that were a stark contrast to the burned out shell of the building I was standing in front of. The main reason I chose to draw this site wasn’t just that it deals with the sense of loss that comes with startling change, but also some of the more subtle elements of hope that come out of those darker ones. It made me think about how these events not only impact the people closest to them, but often ripple out into larger and larger spheres of connection. In the month after the fire the community as a whole mourned the loss of the structure and people reached out to offer a hand, doing what they could to help the ones impacted. Moments like that remind me in some ways of what we’re going through now on a much larger level, we’re all in a situation where even some of the smallest gestures can mean a lot.
HOW CAN WE APPROACH CHANGE? | The good thing about those moments (and change in general) is that is makes us confront things head on and realize what’s important. It’s often in times like these that genuine compassion and creativity arise out of the midst of uncertainty and as Ernest Hemingway once said, “Courage is grace under pressure.” Pressure creates change and change is the only constant we truly have, so why not embrace it, run with it and make the most out of it? I’ve seen more artists, makers and creators flooding the internet with moments of wonder and beauty, people in other fields transitioning at the drop of a hat to make supplies and still others creating new technology that is changing ways of doing things for the better. All of these things are genuinely making a difference, even if it’s just a brief moment in someone’s life. So maybe this week take a moment to search for the positives or look around for someone you can do one small thing for, because even one small thing in times of immense and furious change can mean more than you’ll ever know.