I ask you, dear reader, when was the last time YOU woke up, alone, on a cement floor, in a cold basement, during a Minnesota winter with your paint brush stuck to your hand?  

I recognize my statements may sound pompous, perhaps deluded, or, even, might be viewed as self-serving.   Having now devoted several years of life to creating art I somewhere along the way arrived at a place where I don't care whether or not you like what I create.  The place where I go when creating art is other worldly - all else drops out of my conscious mind.  

It is in these pristine grand intimate times that I realize everything, and nothing, merits attention, that all is connected, and while any link can be thought of as being impermanent, the whole interdependent chaotic mess is beautiful.   I believe this philosophy emanates vibrantly through many of my creations.  My creativity is not motivated by any idea to create and thus make money.   Oddly, I lack the desire to become an 'artist'.   Yet artist I am.  

What is this thing which happened to me?   Some state or vibration shifted when this thing called Art seized me.  Some thing - which I feel inside me - came demanding I pour out all my pain and fears.  With this suddenly felt power alive inside me; often I've found myself in a quiet place where I have no choice but to submit to Art's demand for action.  

I watch me as my hands, acting of their own accord, shift planes, gather media, stretch fabrics, rub down boards, smooth or crinkle papers as they squirt, dab, brush, squish, squiggle and generally splash whatever paints and solvents are available.  And I watch me do this until I literally dropped from sheer exhaustion.   Sometimes I argue with myself.  I say to me: "I don't want to do this" or "I have to go because of [this, that, or the other reason(s)]".  But my hands keep moving. 

Each piece of work created through this process I've described for you is more evidence proving my evolution, shouting to the world the fact of me, that I am.  My soul serves proof of the interdependence and connection of all things, the melding of which we know as our Universe.  My painted pain is for you to view, to see and to feel, to wander over and about, and, ultimately for you to accept or reject.  

Understand that you can not not be impacted.  When you view these pieces you will be altered - whether consciously or not, you will know something you have not known previously.    Fear has transited me from 'then to now' and this trip is what I share with you. 

Enjoy.  Savor.   Reflect.   Laugh.   Cry.   Feel disgust.  Know a new sense of elation.   Taste fear.  Share despair.   Suffer.   Be joyous.  Be aroused.  Be quieted.  Be who you have come in this moment to be.  What you experience as you view my work is for you alonecto know.  Choose wisely.   So choose away.  I don't give a flying fuck if you admire my work.  Feel repulsed if you want to.  Feel compelled.  Feel.  Intuit.  See symbols.  See trash.  

All I would suggest is that you respect the act of creation itself.  Respect each piece - truly look without your ideas and preconceptions. Shut off your fucking head and feel present as your eye and mind conspire.   Ha!  

If you sense a smile behind a piece or know tears flowed into another you are wise.  I appreciate the fact you see these pieces.  You can, if you choose, revel in the simple fact of my not telling you how to see nor what to look for.  I have no agenda set forth to show you what you 'should' or 'must' sense.

Thanks for being open.  Ditto for taking a look.  With luck you might sense the joy, even the wonder which I feel while creating something appreciable even while honoring the detritus of our times.  All my pieces use are comprised of or materialize from things rejected.  This means all my work is just so much trash.  I know it is.  

Now you do too.   Each piece is a scrap, an orphan, a widower, an outcast; each painting incorporates the resurrection of some - most often each component or - element recovered by me (or through the effort of a patron, a friend, a neighbor or a family member and if not in those ways then) from societies' alleyways and dumpsters.   Ashes to ashes is another way of saying trash to trash isn't it? 

Art - inspiration - this muse, the something outside me which comes upon me, overrides my head and flows into and through me.  This is when I paint, watching me from a place removed.  

I have used components recovered from America's alleyways and have done so in places diverse and distant.  Cardboard may have been gathered up in Los Angeles - maybe it was recently a piece of someone's roof.  For all I know the pieces of St. Paul plywood were holding together just fine until a storm ruined the structure which gave birth to them.  There are Key West pizza boxes.  

Atlanta, Roswell, Marietta, Waycross, Blue Ridge and many other southern places have rendered various fabrics.  Little nameless corners in Kentucky can be found with tough papers.  Minnesota snow drifts have shaped some pieces.  Cardboard boxes are found across America.   Even a scrap heap in Tumcumcari, New Mexico yielded it's secrets.   

These things created have simply poured forth.  Not from me but through me.   So the Universe can use same as it sees proper.  The fact you are reading my words right now has come about because the Universe recognizes you are considering a view of my work or that you have already felt something move in you.   The small pieces inside you which no one can see have compelled you to look.  Do you know why?  Or how it is you are in the position you are in right NOW?   

I say: "You are here now because this is precisely where everything in the Universe has conspired to place you at this moment. 

Imagine being hit over the head with a huge cosmic hint so you realize what you have seen - or will see - is what you must see.  When you look at my work what you see will not be what the person next to you sees.  That will not happen.  Your view point is your's alone.  I can but wonder at your perspective, your sense of color, your grasp of space. . . 

No thing is permanent.  Nothing that is except the magic inside you - that invisible part of you known as life. Your life is proof that every single atom which exists is immortal.   The stuff of mankind is immortal stuff.  My art is not immortal, not in any physical sense but still it will live on inside you who view it.  One of you will decide to acquire my art - not because you want to horde it (because that is silly) or destroy it (because that is foolish) but because you are overcome with a sense that you must.  

To whomever such a compelling sensation directs:  your role in the process, which is unfolding even as you read this writing, is to preserve and protect this artistic body of work in it's entirety.  You will fulfill an almost sacred and necessary role as a Patron Keeper.

Rest well knowing that sooner or later another will come along to relieve you of the task.   Your role is temporal and will, eventually, end.  But the fact of your work and the reward of your insight will survive you. 

Dear Keeper you are in a financial position to protect this art - and you know you are - this knowing is all the proof you need.   Mystery keeper, now you know why you have haunted galleries and auctions for years . . .          

Your destiny calls you.  Your purpose is being fulfilled.  You have cause for celebration now.  Enjoy it.  Revel in it.   Neither you nor your money will last forever - but you can contribute simply by passing on this entire body of work.  

Price for you? 

Ten Million Dollars - after taxes. 

A pittance to you - you're gettin' off too cheap.  Well it IS my Philosophy.  Neat ain't it?

-- JCP