I pulled this out of an old portfolio recently. I had no memory of making it; no idea when, what I was thinking, or why it didn’t have a name. It had been sitting in there untouched for over twenty years.
In the summer of 2004 I was at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) for a summer art program, on an architecture track. I was in a buddy’s dorm room. He’d brought an acoustic guitar. I had just learned “Is There Anybody Out There?” by Pink Floyd, which is a quiet, classical-sounding piece, and when I played it that day it hit me: I wanted to pursue music instead. Not because I didn’t love making art, I do, but because of the way music made me feel. That was the moment.
I went to Berklee after high school. The visual art kept happening in the background, the way it does when something’s yours but not yet public.
Looking at this piece now, it reads like that period. A lot of elements that don’t quite cohere, things pulled in different directions, patched together, not yet resolved. That’s an accurate picture of being seventeen. I titled it “Am I Someone?” because that’s the question I see in it.
Chalk pastel on paper. 2004.