fawned art

i was conditioned from a young age to behave, and to do it well, to be a good boy within a christian frame. what passed for goodness was really submission. i became very good at "behaving" and was rewarded for it. at jimmy swaggart's school in baton rouge, i received a "good christian attitude" award. the memory is half-funny and mostly chilling.

speaking up or doing something "wrong" could mean being prayed over, or pleading to be "saved." i learnt early to notice what was expected of me and give people what they wanted.

home reinforced this in other ways. our family was the constant while everything else changed: countries, schools, friends. keeping the peace started to feel like safety.

during one move, i was placed in a school for troubled youth with behavioural problems. it was completely wrong for me. i was trying to adapt to another country and another language and mostly wanted to stay out of trouble. staying off the radar became useful.

around the same time, my sexuality became clear. concealment fitted easily into what i already knew how to do. i adjusted my walk, my voice and where i looked. i chose the safe story and avoided situations where i might give myself away.

eventually i did the same with the work.

i changed titles to make them more vague. avoided subjects that felt too revealing, especially sexuality. softened what i meant. sometimes i could make something appear vulnerable without actually exposing very much.

i thought about who might see the work, understand it, buy it or ridicule it. often those people didn't exist anywhere except in my head.

perfectionism became part of it. i overworked pieces trying to get them "just right." some ended in the fire or broken into pieces. commissions exhausted me because i spent too much time reading the client and not enough listening to myself. i apologised for how long things took and charged too little.

none of this felt strange at the time. i was very good at adapting.

there was a moment in cyprus when something broke.

i was working outside on a portrait sculpture in chavant clay, trying to get it right. measuring, correcting, looking again. the usual voice started: i'm fucking useless, why am i wasting my time?

i punched the sculpture.

it hit the ground. i looked at my hand, palm up, and then the pain started. i had fractured my wrist.

i had never done anything like that before. i haven't since.

sitting there, it became very clear that i couldn't keep working this way. filtering the work, correcting myself, trying to make things acceptable before they had even had the chance to become anything.

underneath all of it was something harder to admit:

fuck me for abandoning myself.

breaking a sculpture doesn't particularly bother me. i've destroyed work deliberately before. this was different. the anger had gone somewhere else.

i don't need to see or experience more. i need to get it out.