ascribing meaning

We carry loaded objects with us everywhere we go. Our lives are filled with the gifts we give and the gifts we receive, the things we gather together in that perpetual search for satisfaction, detritus of the life shared with someone else and the life lived alone. We have clothes that cover our body and somehow define who we are or who we were at some other point in time. We hear songs that mean something, that describe a specific time or place, that remind us of comfort or pain, longing or guilt or happiness.

-that drawing of friends sharing ice cream I gave her as a gift on her birthday, a good gift that was appreciated

-the diorama of a narwhal I gave her because at the time we were mutually flabbergasted that something like a narwhal could even exist

-the leather-bound, handmade journal she gave me years ago, so nice and beautiful that I haven’t been willing to mar the perfect pages with a single mark to this day

-the handful of handmade cups worth several hundred dollars that I brought back from a conference because she couldn’t come with me and I wanted somehow to share the experience with her

-the hyper-valuable vases we found buried in the garage at her parent’s house, dusty and enticing, marking the beginning of another shared interest

-the 100 year old tile torn from some building in Amsterdam and sold for way too much money, the calm before the storm

-the tiny, shitty little nutcracker soldier that was the first gift in a long and still-alive friendship

-the silly little folded gum wrappers that we made while in separate rooms but clearly in the same headspace, which seems to always be the case

-that tiny fragment of ceramic passed from a dying mother to a saddened daughter, and then on to me as a gesture of affection and friendship, then tucked away somewhere and left to fester

-the tiny bit of a pitcher handle found in a dusty field in a foreign country, likely made 4,000 years ago and causing me to wonder if I am alive at the wrong time in human history

-the drawing of a house, given to me with the specific instructions to add to it as I see fit, and to which  I’ve added exactly nothing, though of course I intend to eventually, just not now

-the t-shirt that begat me a nickname at age 19, that still carries meaning to someone, somewhere

-the t-shirt with the turtle that mom made into a pillow because it didn’t fit me anymore but I just couldn’t give it up

-the oversized pants I keep around for when I get sick and have to take the medication I least want to take, the undersized pants I keep around for when I just can’t eat anything, and the right sized  pants for when I am normal and everything is ok

-that entire album that brings me back to age 17 in a tiny car with too many friends, not caring that we were sweating all over each other because honestly that shit didn’t matter, nothing did

-the song that always came up on the mix while in the studio at 1am, age 25, followed by the call to a friend (always the same friend) and a late night break by the canal, night after night, smoke if you got ‘em

-the song that comes up on the mix now and brings me back to late nights in the studio with my best art partner of all time, just before the unavoidable and unforeseen (unforeseeable?) and unintentional wedge was driven between us

-the album that seems to accompany most early memories of a life together, playing in the background over late night dinners in a lavender kitchen. Yes, the dress looks nice on you

This list could go on and on forever. Do you want to share? If you're nice I will share images of the project I completed in NYC last month, as well as the work I made for a show locally.