The artist statement has become an odious task, a re-formatted distillation of one’s passion, a required softener as poorly mated to the work of an artist as cola is to whiskey. It is, like the resume or the didactic panel installed beside all vetted work, little more than a plea to be taken seriously. When encountered it rings with the dull pang of a once proud and useful municipal clock tower bell, the original peal long since replaced by a recording, the belfry wrapped in chicken wire to ward off the pigeons. It vaguely coughs toward something grand yet always ends denuded and weak, an echo of missteps or, worse, misdeeds. It is though, in the course of the spiral, a necessary part of the waltz toward victory. And so…
One moves through the world because it compels you to, beckoning with vulgarities and amazements – an immersion terribly close to a love affair. Our work is the way we know to smooth the edges of the world, to find our selves inside of it, and to push back when need be. This then is a damning of the torpedoes, a turning of the screws, and a call for ramming speed. Our path may be uncharted, but our fumbling is striving, and the goal of that striving is not to impress or succeed but rather to sing back to, not at, a world we are tied to through much more than circumstance. Through our work, we aim toward a perfection known to be unattainable but understood to be the reason to live. The work well made, well, that is the only way to sing. Here are our songs, ugly, mean, true, and beautiful. They are at the very least honest and can be taken or left, though we wish you to take them.